


Codex of a Killer

by rexthranduil



Category: Criminal Minds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 19:28:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 66,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1238200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rexthranduil/pseuds/rexthranduil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An Unsub based in D.C challenges the BAU to a game... catch him before he destroys the city. [Set after Gideon left and Rossi has joined the team]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was four-thirty in the afternoon on Monday, August 24th the letter came. It was exactly four-thirty-five in the afternoon when it was placed in the incoming mail for the fourteenth-floor. It was precisely when the clock above the coffee-machine was saying four-forty-seven in the afternoon when the letter was deposited on the desk of an unsuspecting person who was just leaving the large conference room on the opposite side of the bullpen. It was then four-forty-nine when they sat down at their desk and noticed the letter. It took them all of one-minute-thirty-five-seconds to read the entire letter six times, just to make sure, and stand before crossing the bullpen back into the conference shouting the name, "REID!"

It took roughly thirty-four-minutes for the person named Reid to realise that the letter was more than a simple letter. It took him one-hour-forty-four-minutes to fully decode the letter that was more than a letter, and to realise that they were on a time limit.

He stood from his seat at the conference table and began to write on a large whiteboard the letter in its coded form and then beneath it, the decoded version of the letter. It made his blood start to freeze and made the other people in the room with him wonder. What they were wondering about however, is something that can't be told or explained since it's a breach of their privacy... but, that doesn't really matter all the much when they are the subject of a killer. Does it?

The whiteboard showed the entire code written in a readable font and this is what it said;

> **8irro-2-1-21-**
> 
> **9-zowi-dov-ieuodig-ftlfpqey-czi-fogi-18iqg**
> 
> **25ov-lrhldu-hiti—czi-usltc-oei-hitiec-dov**
> 
> **9-yviuu-dovti-hoegitqey-hzd-czqu-qu-qe-fogi**
> 
> **23irr-czlcu-uqswri-tilrrd**
> 
> **25ov-yvyu-eiig-l-fzlrrieyi**
> 
> **9mi-aiie-xorrohqey-dovt-hotp-leg-uqefi-7qgqioe-rixc-dovmi-aifosi-l-siti-uzlgoh-ox-hzlc-dov-oefi-hiti**
> 
> **19o-9-slgi-l-gifquqoe**
> 
> **21zqu-qu-xot-czi-yoog-ox-czi-21eqcig-19clciu-ox-1sitqfl-leg-xot-dovm-ohe-ulpiu-lruo**
> 
> **25ov-zlmi-^#-zovtu-vecqr-9-uieg-leoczit-riccit-czlc-hqrr-sile-dov0zlmi-xlqrig-czqu-fzlrrieyi**
> 
> **15x-fovtui-9-zlmi-co-cirr-dov-hzlc-czi-fzlrrieyi-qu-goec-9**
> 
> **23irr-czi-fzlrrieyi-qu-czqu**
> 
> **9-zlmi-wrlfig-uimitlr-aosu-ltoveg-23luzqeycoe-4-3-leg-qx-dov-hquz-co-ucow-czi-rouu-ox-qeeofiec-rqmiu-czie-dov-svuc-xorroh-sd-frviu-fltixvrrd**
> 
> **18iqg-hqrr-ai-ox-ytilc-luuquclefi-co-dov-xot-czqu-fzlrrieyi-uo-qx-zi-uldu-uosiczqey-dov-sqyzc-hlec-co-lfcvlrrd-rqucie-co-zqs-13otyle-8ocfz**
> 
> **18qyzc-zitiu-dovt-xqtuc-frvi**
> 
> **xtos-?"-lftouu-czi-hlcit-9-6otc-9-ulh-l-uorgqit-9-hlu-htoey-laovc-czlc-l-uzlsi**
> 
> **2d-czi-19jvlti-ox-10vucqfi-zilgqey-co-l-soevsiec-ox-16ilfi-9egqlel-uldu-ucow-l-fqcd-zlrr-xot-dov**
> 
> **^-xrootu-vw-?-gohe-!-vw-xtos-£-leg-dov-hqrr-xqeg-czi-ctilvti-hzqfz-dov-uiip-qe-le-oxxfqi-xot-l-sldot**
> 
> **20qfp-cofp**
> 
> **20qsiu-tveeqey-ovc**

There was silence in the conference room as the BAU's top team stared at the whiteboard wondering on some level in their minds how, yet again, Reid had managed to save them a lot of time in the game they were now playing with this particular Unsub. As there was silence in the room it made for any footsteps or sounds outside the room to be uncharacteristically loud; due to this, everyone of them heard the footsteps of one Penelope Garcia as she made her way along the catwalk and into the conference room.

"Hey, my little FBI babies! I have..." She stopped, three steps into the room, as she noticed that they weren't paying her any mind at all and were continuing to stare at the decoded message on the whiteboard. This caused Penelope to also look at the whiteboard and to also come to an uncharacteristic silence; which was accompanied with a look of obvious shock, as she read the contents of the whiteboard.

Now, to give a little peace of mind this is what the decoded version of the letter actually said, since not everyone can be expected to have an IQ of 160 and to be able to read 20'000 words a minute or spit out random facts and statistics from sunrise to sunset.

 

> _**Hello** _
> 
> _**I hope you enjoyed cracking the code Reid** _
> 
> _**You always were the smart one werent you** _
> 
> _**I guess youre wondering why this is in code** _
> 
> _**Well thats simple really** _
> 
> _**You guys need a challenge** _
> 
> _**Ive been following your work and since Gideon left youve become a mere shadow of what you once were** _
> 
> _**So I made a decision** _
> 
> _**This is for the good of the United States of America and for your own sakes also** _
> 
> _**You have 48 hours until I send another letter that will mean you have failed this challenge** _
> 
> _**Of course I have to tell you what the challenge is dont I** _
> 
> _**Well the challenge is this** _
> 
> _**I have placed several bombs around Washington D C and if you wish to stop the loss of innocent lives then you must follow my clues carefully** _
> 
> _**Reid will be of great assistance to you for this challenge so if he says something you might want to listen to him Morgan Hotch** _
> 
> _**Right heres your first clue** _
> 
> _**From 295 across the water I fort I saw a soldier. I was wrong about that, a shame. By the Square of Justice heading to a monument of Peace, Indiana says stop, a city hall for you! Four floors up, two down, one up from three and you will find the treasure which you seek in an office for a mayor!** _
> 
> _**Tick-tock** _
> 
> _**Time's running out.** _

As it is, no-one expects to receive a letter that details a personal response to one's job capabilities nor does one normally expect to have the responsibility of a large number of lives placed on their heads if they fail in such an important task.

Although the members of the Behavioural Analysis Unit have been responsible for ensuring the safety of the general public by capturing an Unsub before they kill more victims, they haven't been subjected to being the only thing that could save the lives of people who they are responsible for due to their own shortcomings that have been perceived by the Unsub.

Finally, after what could be considered decades of silence but was in fact only fourteen minutes, the BAU team along with one Penelope Garcia started into action. JJ went off to call the Washington D.C. Police. Hotch went off to get clearance for their little trip and subsequent investigation. Morgan, Prentiss and Rossi went off to set up transport to the airport and for vehicles in Washington D.C. Garcia made her way briskly down to her technical haven and began to search through everything that was digitally available to her gifted fingertips whilst Reid tried to discover what the clue meant so that the team would know where to go ahead of actually arriving in the City.

* * *

As the BAU owned jet took off on its journey to Washington D.C the entire BAU team sat in their respective seats, silent for a moment as they all waited for the turbulence they were being subjected to stopped and the jet began its steady ascent up above the clouds. After several minutes where one or two members of the team sat stiffly, gripping the arm-rests tightly in fear the plane was high enough up in the sky for the turbulence to cease and for movement within the jet to be allowed. The first to move were the character Hotch and Rossi – or SSA Aaron Hotchner and SSA David Rossi – the others soon began to move about also. JJ – also known professionally as SSA Jennifer Jareau – pulled out several copies of a single file that had been compiled before they had left HQ and passed them around, each of the team taking one for themselves to read through. She began to speak flipping through the pages until she came to a stop on a copy of the letter sent to them – along with a decoded-version of the same letter.

"The Police there have agreed to allow us to lead the investigation and to give us all of the assistance they can offer us on this. If what it says in this letter is true then we have less than 44 hours to find this bomb, defuse it and catch this guy-"

"Actually. I think we have 44 hours to find all the bombs he's placed as well as defuse them" Reid said, looking up from the file he'd just read through with a rather worried look on his face, "in his letter he said that he placed several bombs around D.C and we have 48 hours until he sends a letter saying that we've failed. If you consider that then he's basically saying we have to find all of these bombs before the time's up!"

"But, how do we find all of them?" Rossi said looking at the decoded-version of the letter a little confused about its contents.

"By following the clues he's given us." Hotch said looking more solemn than usual for the experienced FBI special agent.

"We've only got one clue though Hotch" Morgan pointed out staring him with an annoyed look on his face, "How are we meant to find these bombs if we don't have anything to go on?"

"We've got to assume that's left a clue at the site of this first bomb that'll lead us to the next one Morgan." Hotch declared, giving him a look that clearly said  _'it's all we've got, I know it's not a lot, but it's the best we have'_  before turning to Reid and saying, "Reid. Have you figured out what his clue means yet?"

Reid looked at Hotch for a moment before looking hastily down at the paper in front of him. He stared at it for a moment before saying, his voice construing his annoyance and confusion, "I haven't Hotch. I don't know... I'll keep working on it though." Then, almost as if there was no-one around him, Reid went into his own little world filled with facts and figures, logic and science trying desperately to uncover the meaning in the clue they'd been given.

The jet continued on its journey through the stratosphere and no-one would ever have guessed that someone was tracking it with a stolen government-issue piece of equipment used in tracking enemy planes and missiles.

* * *

As the jet came in to land at Washington D.C airport the passengers of the jet all sat in their seats in much the same way as they had on the take-off. None of them spoke as they waited for the wheels of the jet to hit the tarmac runway and then for the jet to be taxied until they were allowed to disembark and to make their way to the vehicles that would be waiting for them. The vehicles of course would be black, Federal issue SUVs that looked  _every_   _bit_  as intimidating as they hoped them to be.

When the jet was well-an-truly stationary and the cabin door was opened by the co-pilot, the team was allowed to disembark and make their way over to the SUVs where a black-and-white squad car was parked, a plain clothes cop leaning against the side staring at them with what would be considered an unintelligible look to any normal person but to a profiler – or profilers, as the case may be – showed that the cop was staring at them with equal measures of annoyance at being the babysitter for the  _Feds_ , disdain at having said Feds in  _his_  city interfering with  _his_  job and partial-relief at having someone else for the media to blame if it all goes wrong.

"I'm Detective Jonas Quince, I'm here to make sure you guys get to the Precinct as quickly as possible. We've got a room all set-up for you guys." The Detective, Quince, said standing straightly when Hotch and the others stopped just in front of him.

"SSA Hotchner. That's SSA Morgan, Prentiss, Rossi, Jareau and Dr. Reid." Hotch said always being the ex-lawyer that he was and being nice and polite – even if he didn't smile – before saying, "We'll follow you as long as the traffic doesn't cause too much of a problem."

"Uh-huh. Right. Well, best get movin' then." Quince said before turning away from them and getting in his squad car. The team made their way over to the two SUVs piling into them in this order; Hotch, Reid and Morgan in the first SUV and JJ, Prentiss and Rossi in the second SUV. After a moment or so Quince pulled away and the SUVs followed closely as the convoy made it's way to the Police Precinct they were going to be based at for the duration of the case.

In the second SUV the girls and Rossi were discussing the letter, or more specifically what it told them about the Unsub and the way his mind worked – in essence, why the Unsub thought he was doing them a favour by threatening to blow a load of people to Kingdom-come!

"It's almost as if he feels obligated to us!" Prentiss said looking at JJ shocked at her own conclusion, "Like he thinks it's his duty to make sure we're on top-form."

"So, he sees himself as a protector. This line, 'This is for the good of the United States of America and for your own sakes also'... he thinks he's protecting America and us by making sure we're able to catch him." JJ said quietly her eyes scanning the contents of the letter for what was probably the fifteenth time that afternoon.

"But he's not going to make catching him easy." Rossi injected in the conversation as he changed lanes and followed Hotch in the first SUV along the street. "He wants this to be a challenge for us, and he knows we won't let innocent people die so we're going to try harder than usual to try and find all of these bombs."

"What has happened in his life that's made him feel obligated to us to this degree?" Prentiss said looking at JJ when she raised her eyes and stared back at her, her own eyes filled with as much curiosity and confusion that Prentiss' also held.

"I don't know... but he may have been someone we've saved in the past and thinks this is the only way to repay us." JJ said slowly after several minutes of uncomfortable silence. "Either way, one thing is for sure." Prentiss looked at her questioningly, "He's been watching us for a while now. We've got to expect that he's watching us now too."

* * *

Whilst the girls and Rossi were discussing the Unsub in the second SUV, in the first SUV Reid was going over the clue trying in desperation to figure it out. Morgan was silent staring out of the window watching the people on the side-walk hurry from point A to B in a short a time as possible, carrying briefcases and talking on cellphones or checking pagers or whatever other technological objects they had on them. Hotch was watching the traffic and trying to navigate past the crazed taxi-drivers without losing sight of Quince's squad car.

Finally as they turned left onto 6th St heading NW Morgan broke the silence saying wistfully, "Hey. You know what I've always wanted to see in this City?"

Hotch being his usually talkative self replied, "No. What?"

"I've always wanted to see Peace Monument. I mean, you see it on postcards and stuff but nothin' beats seein' the real thing." Morgan stared off out of the wind-shield his eyes finding the black-an-white squad car two cars ahead of them.

"Well, if we can catch this Unsub in time you might get to see it." Hotch said changing lanes and giving a taxi-driver a nasty glare after he'd had to dodge him when he'd suddenly stopped by the side-walk. "That's if those guys don't kill us first!" he added indicating to another taxi that was parked by the side-walk further down the street.

Reid froze. His mind took off faster than the speed of light as he started considered what Morgan had just said. He considered the clue, it was all whizzing around in his head...  _'A Monument of Peace'_... "Morgan!"

"What kid?" Morgan said turning to look at Reid in the back-seat, a bit surprised by Reid's sudden shout of his name... he'd kind of forgotten he was back there.

"What did you just say?" Reid asked looking at him with wide-brown-eyes, his speech even faster than usual, which was  _fast_.

"I err..." Morgan raised an eyebrow just a bit confused, "I said that stuff on postcards are nothin'-"

"No, no, no!" Reid shook his head furiously causing his brown hair to fly about, "B-before that!"

Stopping for a moment Morgan looked at Reid before saying slowly, sounding as confused as he felt, "Err... I said I've always wanted to see Peace Monument. Why?"

"Morgan! You're a genius!" Reid exclaimed giving him a grin before looking down at the note-pad he had on his lap and scribbling at a speed that just shouldn't be possible in a moving vehicle.

"What is it Reid?" Hotch asked looking at him in the rear-view mirror.

"A Monument of Peace!" Reid said incredulously from the back-seat, looking up at Morgan with his eyebrows raised so much that they nearly reached his hairline. "It's a Monument of Peace... Morgan! Is there a map of the City in the glove-box?"

Surprised slightly by Reid's sudden change in the tone of his voice replied, "Err yeah... why do you need it?"

"Get it for me... and I think I can explain all of this then." Reid answered not looking at him as he refocused his attention on the note-pad he was starting to scribble on again.

Deciding he'd do as Reid said, Morgan turned back around in his seat and rooted through the glove-box searching for the D.C street map that the SUV was bound to have. After a minute or two of searching he smirked as he pulled out a D.C street map before passing it to Reid saying, "Here you go Reid."

Reid didn't even look up at him as he took the map and opened it so enthusiastically that Morgan swore the thing was going to be ripped in two. Without paying any attention to Morgan or Hotch, Reid began to look through the entire map trying to find something in particular. He was searching the map so quickly that Morgan was sure the kid was going to miss what he was actually looking for, but then again he knew Reid could actually read as quickly as he said he could and he supposed he was quick at reading maps too.

In Reid's mind his thoughts ran along tangents so long that they couldn't really be fully understood as he considered the clue and the map in conjunction. He thought about the entire clue and noted down anything that remotely related to anything in the clue.  _'From the 295 I Fort I saw... I was wrong, a shame'...that's a false start...'Square of Justice'... Square of Justice, Square of Justice..._  He found it! The Square of Justice! He found it! "Justice Square!" he exclaimed scribbling it down along with Peace Monument.

"What Reid?" Hotch asked looking at him again in the rear-view mirror with an eyebrow raised expecting an answer.

"Square of Justice... it's Justice Square!" Reid said quietly, already looking for the next clue...

_'Indiana says stop, A city hall for you!'... A city hall... Indiana... 'Indiana says stop'_

Suddenly Hotch's cellphone began to ring and as he fished it out of his pocket some crazed taxi-driver shot out in front of him causing him to slam on the breaks. He cursed quietly under his breath and after he pulled out his cellphone began to move again, listening to the  _'beeps'_  and _'honks'_  of some of the drivers behind it impatient to get to their next destination.

"Aaron Hotchner." He said, all professional, his voice not giving away that he was currently considering using Garcia to find out who the taxi-driver was and to get him fired. "Yes, Detective. Alright then... we keep going down this street and then turn onto Indiana Avenue heading NW... okay. Thank-you Detective. Goodbye."

"What is it Hotch?" Morgan asked as Hotch disconnected the call and shoved his cellphone back in to his suit-jacket pocket.

"Detective Quince just told me that he's got to go and sort out a domestic disturbance he's been called to and that he's sorry for having to leave us to get the Precinct on our own." Hotch replied as he caught sight of the turning he wanted a little way down the street.

Reid looked up at them and said to Hotch, his speech as fast as it always was, "Wait, Hotch? Where did you say you had to turn onto?"

"Indiana Avenue. Why do you ask?" Hotch replied looking at Reid in the rear-view mirror as Reid suddenly looked down at the map and started to scribble away on his note-pad. As Reid continued to do this Hotch started to get impatient and as he turned onto Indiana Avenue heading NW he finally let in to his frustration, "REID!"

Jumping violently in the back seat Reid looked up at Morgan and then his eyes locked with the reflection of Hotch's. Hotch, pleased that he had Reid's attention still didn't stop glaring at him, and said his voice controlled, "What's so important about this street Reid?"

"Reid looked away from his eyes and out of the window for a moment before saying, "I think this is the street where the bomb is."

Hotch immediately pulled over and, whilst it was obviously confusing for Rossi in the second SUV as he hadn't been privy to the current conversation, Rossi also pulled over. "Reid. Explain. Now."

"Reid fidgeted slightly in his seat, belatedly realising that he should've explained this all to Hotch before, he sighed and started to speak very fast and quietly as his door opened and JJ, Prentiss and Rossi all appeared outside looking confused as to why they'd stopped. "The clue. I've figured it out. In it, it talks about heading towards Peace Monument from Justice Square but stopping at Indiana Avenue because there's a City Hall on this street. I'm guessing that on the fourth floor in the Mayor's office is where we'll find the first bomb."

There was utter silence from the team for a moment before Hotch said, "Where's the City Hall?"

Reid looked around out of the windows and could've laughed if he didn't know they were on a time-limit. "We're parked right in front of it."

Hotch, somehow didn't show any surprise at their fortune, instead he said, "Right. Come on." Then Hotch, Morgan and Reid got out of the SUV and started walking towards the entrance into the City Hall along with JJ, Prentiss and Rossi, "JJ. Call the Bomb squad, tell them we've got a bomb in the City Hall on Indiana Avenue." He said, looking at JJ.

She nodded and pulled out her cellphone, dialled the number and began speaking into it as they entered the building...


	2. Chapter 2

When they walked into the foyer of the City Hall Hotch led the way over to the reception desk and brandished his FBI credentials saying quickly and quietly, "I'm SSA Aaron Hotchner. I work for the FBI and I need you to have this entire building evacuated immediately please."

The receptionist looked as though someone had just hit her with a brick but did as he asked, speaking into a comm. that was in her ear reciting what Hotch had just told her to the security of the building when JJ said to Hotch, "The bomb squad's been dispatched Hotch, they'll be here in about 10 minutes until then we need to get these people out and locate the bomb."

"I agree. Emily, David, JJ you three start evacuating people. Morgan, Reid and I will go and find the bomb." Hotch replied just as quietly to all of them when a security guard came up to them.

The guard looked from Rossi to Morgan then to Hotch, as though he was trying to decide who was in-charge, he seemed to settle on Hotch because he directed his question at him, "What's the situation sir?"

Hotch looked at him before saying, "We've had a bomb threat and we believe there's a bomb located somewhere in this building. We need to evacuate everyone as quickly as possible."

The others nodded at him before Prentiss, Rossi, JJ and the security guard moved off towards the large throngs of people milling around the place. Morgan and Reid followed Hotch as he turned away and strode towards the service stairway – not wanting to use the elevator and getting hampered by people exiting the building.

As they reached the second floor they heard over the tannoy the security guards voice stating,  _ **"... if everyone in the building would please evacuate the building... this is not a drill... exit the building IMMEDIATELY..."**_

"Well, he's certainly good with words." Morgan muttered as he gave Reid a smirk which wasn't returned as Reid was too busy trying to not trip up over his own feet on the twisty staircase. "You trippin' over your own feet kid?"

"No!" Reid exclaimed looking at Morgan and glaring at him which unfortunately caused him to trip over his right foot and send him careening into the wall where he ended up in a slumped heap on the floor as Morgan rushed to his side.

"You alright kid?" Morgan said looking at Reid concerned as Hotch stopped heading upstairs and instead came to crouch down next to Reid also.

Reid looked at Morgan in a daze for a moment before smiling slightly and saying, "I'm fine... I might have twisted my ankle and hit my head but nothing worse."

Breathing a sigh of relief Morgan and Hotch helped Reid to stand before they set off again up the stairs... Reid limping slightly and gripping the banister.

* * *

JJ, Rossi and Prentiss were standing outside the City Hall directing people away from the building and trying to explain to the police officers that had just arrived the situation. The security guard had disappeared most likely off to the other guards that were around somewhere.

"Rossi." JJ said as David Rossi turned to start walking back into the City Hall, he stopped and turned back at her so she continued, "We should wait for the Bomb Squad to clear the building."

"But what about Hotch and the others?" Rossi said turning around fully as she came to stand beside him, Emily following her.

"They'll be fine Rossi. Hotch knows what he's doing and Morgan's not going to set the bomb off. They're just going to check out the Mayor's office and make sure everyone on the upper floors have all left the building." JJ reassured him as Emily nodded her head in agreement.

Rossi smiled and gave them a curt nod before looking back at the City Hall. He couldn't help but feel that something bad was going to happen...

* * *

Up on the fourth floor of the City Hall Hotch, Morgan and Reid walked along the corridor – well, in Reid's case it was more like limping – towards the Mayor's office checking the rooms they passed making sure that no-one was still in there.

Hotch hesitated when he reached out for the doorknob of the door to the Mayor's office thinking  _'What if the bombs connected to the doorknob? What if I open this door and we all die?'_  then, not allowing himself to begin to doubt himself he grabbed and twisted the knob before opening the door when the lock clicked.

"Come on... but don't touch anything until the Bomb Squad gets here." Hotch said as he walked slowly and carefully into the room, Morgan and Reid following behind just as cautiously.

Hotch looked at the desk and couldn't help but get a sinking feeling in his stomach...

* * *

"I've found it."

* * *

"David, the Bomb Squad's arrived." JJ said as she marched up to Rossi followed by a middle-aged, African-American man in blue overalls with stencilled, white-lettering on the back saying 'BOMB SQUAD'.

"Captain Aidan Gem, I hear you've got a bomb in there?", the man, Captain Gem, asked as he stopped beside JJ, in front of Rossi.

"Yes, three of our team are inside making sure everyone has evacuated and that the bomb is located by them and no-one else." Rossi replied shaking Captain Gem's outstretched hand, noting a firm grip,  _'guess a firm hand's a good thing to have when you're defusing bomb's daily'_.

"Okay," he said, nodding as he reached for the walkie-talkie inside his overall pocket, "DC-A339, we have three, I repeat three, federal agents inside evacuating civilians. They may, I repeat may, have located the target."

Rossi's cellphone began to ring and he answered it hurriedly when he noticed who was calling, "Hotch!"

"We've located the bomb, David. It's in the Mayor's office on the fourth floor."

"Okay Hotch." he looked at JJ and Captain Gem saying, "the bomb's in the Mayor's office on the fourth floor."

"It's in the first draw on the right side of the desk."

"And it's in the first draw on the right hand side of the desk." Rossi added before saying to Hotch as Captain Gem relayed the information to the rest of his squad, "Hotch. Get out, the Bomb Squad are here and they're heading up now."

"Alright, David. We're leaving now." And with that Hotch ended the call, turning to look at Reid and Morgan up on the third floor in the Mayor's office. "Come on."...

* * *

"You've found what?" Reid asked absent-mindedly as he looked through a cabinet draw on the far side of the room.

"The bomb." Hotch replied simply looking up at Morgan who'd stopped searching himself to look at the bomb himself.

"Really? Oh!" Reid turned away from the cabinet suddenly, twisting his already injured ankle more causing him to almost fall again, but he managed to stop himself by bracing himself against the wall. "Err... guys."

Hotch and Morgan ignored him as Hotch pulled out his cell and called David, "David."

"Hotch!"

"We've located the bomb, David. It's in the Mayor's office on the fourth floor." Hotch said immediately stopping Rossi from asking anything.

"Okay Hotch," he listened as David told JJ and whoever else was with him, presumably Prentiss.

"It's in the first draw on the right side of the desk." he continued before agreeing with David, "Alright, David. We're leaving now." and ending the call.

He shoved his cell back into his suit-jacket pocket turning to look at both Morgan and Reid before saying, "Come on, let's get out of here. Bomb Squad's arrived and they're going to diffuse the bomb."

Hotch and Morgan turned towards the door before Reid said, "Wait!", they turned suddenly and found Reid staring at the palm of his right hand.

"What is it kid?" Morgan asked walking over to stand beside Reid, Hotch followed him, his eyebrows knitting together slightly.

"Paint." Reid replied still looking at his hand, swaying slightly on his feet.

"Paint? What are you- on... about.. oh..." Morgan stopped and looked at the palm of Reid's hand, which was coated with magnolia coloured gloss-paint. The same type of paint on the walls.

"The walls have been freshly painted." Reid said looking up at Hotch and then at the walls. "These walls should be a Wild Primrose colour. The paint's hiding something."

"Alright. We'll check it out after the Bomb Squad have diffused the bomb Reid. But we've got to leave  **now**." Hotch said, 'Or else we might be decorating the walls too!'

Reid nodded and, with Morgan's help, left the room after Hotch. They were down by the emergency stairwell when the Bomb Squad opened the door of the emergency stairwell and zoomed off towards the Mayor's office.

"They looked like they were in a hurry, huh kid?" Morgan smirked as they made their way back down to the lobby.

"They have to diffuse an explosive device Morgan. Of course they're going to be in a hurry!" Reid replied his voice rising slightly as they finally reached the bottom of the stairs, his ankle was killing him!

* * *

"Such a smart boy Spence... they really should respect you more... you do their job for them... they're just hired muscle... they know nothing!"

In the crowd outside of the City Hall a group of Japanese tourists were chatting away in their native tongue taking photographs and recording the goings-on with a single silent figure in their midst, who looked nothing like them in teams of facial features and complexion.

"They should've caught him... but you've all lowered your game... I'll soon correct that mistake!"

* * *

Reid, helped by Morgan, hobbled out of the fire escape into the lobby of the City Hall and watched as the groups of uniformed officers stood outside the large doors on the steps and side-walk, chattering into radio's and to each other, coordinating with the bomb squad etcetera.

Hotch pushed the revolving door and walked through it, then pushing it slower he watched as Morgan helped Reid hobble through it and out into the sunlight.

They saw a large crowd of bystanders behind yellow blockades, some with their cell phones out recording the entire thing and others just standing watching in fear, awe and worry...

Hotch noticed a group of cameras and reporters all surrounding a rather harassed looking police spokesman and idly wondered where JJ was. And the others at that.

"Where's Rossi and the girls?" Morgan asked looking over at Hotch, "I can't see them."

Reid was about to answer when there was a crackle over the nearest uniformed officer's radio from the bomb squad,  _'bomb has been defused'_  and a cheer went up from a couple of cops and the bystanders.

"HOTCH!" Emily shouted as she came powering up the steps, having come out of an armoured police van, JJ and Rossi were close on her heels, all of their faces sporting relieved looks. "They've disarmed the bomb."

"Yeah, we heard," Reid muttered, his voice sounding strained and his face pained as his ankle decided to have an-all-out war.

"Reid? Are you alright?" Rossi asked as he stopped in front of them looking at Reid with a concerned look upon his face.

"He needs to see a paramedic, he twisted his ankle pretty bad up there," Morgan answered for Reid as Hotch signalled the attention of a medic who came over carrying a red bag.

"What's the problem?" The medic asked, his accent pining him as being Texan. He had sandy-coloured hair, was about 5ft 7" with a square jaw and soft, gentle brown eyes.

"Twisted my ankle," Reid ground out as he shifted his weight more onto his other leg, almost wanting to cry from the pain.

"Oh-kay, but I think ya' look in a lot more pain than what anyone with a twisted ankle normally looks in," the Texan medic said indicating to Morgan to help Reid hobble over to one of the ambulances at the bottom of the steps, "Sit down here and let me have a look."

Reid gingerly sat down on the instep of the ambulance and lifted his leg up slightly so the medic could take of his shoe and his sock – he was ever so glad that he was wearing new, clean socks!

The Texan gently felt the ankle joint and noticed when Reid jumped violently when he simply pressed ever so lightly with his thumb on the outer side of his ankle, he considered the notion that the ankle was either severely sprained or possibly had a hairline fracture. He thought the hairline fracture was less likely but more probable since he doubted that this  _boy?_  had such a low pain tolerance.

"Hey, ermm..." he looked at the  _boy_  wondering if he had a name, he'd come out with that guy in the suit and that other one who had the demeanour of a cop so he guessed that this  _kid_  was older than 18!

"Dr. Reid, SSA agent of the FBI." Reid answered, his voice deep and pain-filled. He felt like his ankle was being sawn off!  _Absolute_  agony! He knew that this was no sprained ankle, he'd had plenty of those in his life and they had  _never_  hurt as much as this was now!

"Ya're a Fed?" The Texan asked, surprised. He hadn't pegged the kid as being a Fed, he just didn't have anything that screamed 'I'm-a-federal-agent!' about him. ' _Oh well,'_ he reasoned, _'guess I shouldn't always judge a book by a cover... grandma-ma was right about that!'_

"Yeah..." Reid smiled, well, grimaced really, at the Texan, "I get... that a lot... from people... I'm not... what they'd call... agent material!" he laughed when the Texan looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

"I can see where they come from," the Texan replied, smirking at the young Fed. "How old are ya' anyway?"

"I'm twenty-six..." Reid answered, grinning at the Texan's surprised look, "yeah... bit of a surprise."

"A bit, yeah, does this hurt?" The Texan grinned at Reid before turning his foot slightly.

"Ye-AH!" Reid jumped and howled quietly in pain as his ankle just reached a whole new level of pain.

"Sorry..." the Texan grimaced before sighing and saying, "I think ya' got a hairline fracture. The pain's too severe to be a simple sprain. Ya'll have to go to hospital and get it strapped up."

"Damn," Reid muttered when the pain in his ankle subsided slightly, "I'll have to tell Hotch."

"Is he the one who helped ya' hobble over here?" The Texan queried, looking over towards the group of what he guessed where the other Feds.

"No, he's the... one wearing... the suit... and looks... grumpy," Reid replied, smirking slightly as the Texan laughed.

"Gotcha! Alright then, I'll tell him for ya' if ya' want and then ya' can go to the hospital... maybe one of them'll accompany ya'?" The Texan said as he rifled through his red bag and produced a support bandage to place around the ankle, "This is gonna hurt now but it'll do ya' some good."

"Just do it," Reid said, bracing himself against the pain. He still whimpered in pain as the Texan carefully put the bandage on, his brain momentarily over-run by little regiments of soldiers shooting the heck out of his nerves.

The team must have heard his whimpering because they were all around him in seconds and asking him if he was alright and whether he wanted someone to ride to the hospital with him.

The Texan looked at them and then at Reid before answering their questions, to save the poor kid from having to talk yet. "He's probably got a hairline fracture in his ankle, he'll need an x-ray to be certain and won't be doing much walking 'round for a while. He's gonna have to go to the hospital and maybe one of ya' wanna go with him?" he raised an eyebrow as they all exchanged glances, almost as though they were having a silent conversation.

"Hotch, I'll go to the hospital with Reid and make sure he's okay," JJ said looking away from Reid over to Hotch with large, pleading, blue-eyes. Hotch couldn't say no to her. He nodded at her and she looked at the Texan saying, "Are we going to go now?"

The Texan nodded before saying to Reid, "So, ya' got a pretty lady coming with ya' to worry over ya'. Do ya' wanna get goin'?"

Reid couldn't answer but he managed a nod, before his thought-process was sent careening out of the metaphorical window and crashed into the pavement twenty-storeys below. The Texan smiled in sympathy and helped Reid onto the nearby gurney before signalling another medic to come over and help him load it into the ambulance.

"Ya'll be fine kid, it's not gonna kill ya'," the Texan said kindly, "The hospital food might though." that got a small laugh from Reid before he winced slightly from the pain.

Reid could feel the pull of unconsciousness on his mind and he knew he wouldn't be able to fight it much longer so he dredged up as much energy as possible to open his mouth and say, "No narcotics... no pain meds..." before fading away into the beautiful gift of unconsciousness.

The Texan looked at the blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman who was climbing into the ambulance with a raised eyebrow in question. She smiled sadly before saying, "He doesn't like having drugs in his system... my guess is because he thinks it messes up his brains!"

'Oh... I'm sure that's it' the Texan thought sarcastically, but he liked the kid so he wasn't going to judge him. Maybe she was telling the truth, maybe she wasn't, it didn't really affect his job all that much. "Hold on when ya' sit down. Speedy there likes to drive fast!" he joked nodding towards the driver in the front, who turned and glared at him before saying something that JJ didn't really understand. "Ah, shut up and get drivin'!" the Texan called to the driver before grinning at JJ. JJ couldn't help but smile back.

* * *

Hotch and Morgan stood with the team around them, minus Reid who was having his ankle checked out. Hotch wanted nothing more than to go over to Reid and make sure he was alright but he couldn't, he had a job to do. So he ignored the part of him that was screaming  _'go to him! Gideon would KILL you if he's hurt badly!'_  and ploughed on ahead with the discussion.

"There was some sort of writing on the wall, Reid noticed it," Morgan explained to the others, "He said it was under a layer of fresh paint which means that the unsub's been there recently."

"Probably in the last few hours otherwise the paint would've dried already," Prentiss said, "Did you see what it said?"

"No. I think Reid only noticed because he leaned on the wall for support, the fresh paint was on his hand," Hotch said, "We'll need to x-ray the wall and remove the paint before we can find out what the message is."

"Okay, so what can we do?" JJ asked looking over at Reid and noticing that his usually gentle look had been replaced by a slightly pained grimace.

"As of right now, we can give a press conference. Find out what we can from the local police and go the precinct to start working on a profile," Hotch answered, looking grumpier than normal, he despised not having something constructive to do. It made him feel useless.

"Alight then, I'll head over to Precinct now with Emily. You and JJ can give the conference and-" Rossi was cut off when the sound of whimpering was heard by all of them loud-and-clear.

They all immediately shot over to Reid and began asking him whether he was alright or if he needed anyone to stay with him.

The medic answered them, "He's probably got a hairline fracture in his ankle, he'll need an x-ray to be certain and won't be doing much walking 'round for a while. He's gonna have to go to the hospital and maybe one of ya' wanna go with him?"

Hotch heard the Texan accent but didn't really file it away, he was far too concerned for Reid.

JJ looked at Reid sadly, whilst the others looked at each other, having a completely silent conversation with each other over who was going to accompany Reid to the hospital. JJ didn't let the others get a chance to ask first, she said to Hotch, "Hotch, I'll go to the hospital with Reid and make sure he's okay."

Hotch looked at JJ for a moment before nodding at her, giving her his permission to go with him and a look that just screamed  _'look-after-him-he's-in-your-care-now'_. She looked at the medic and asked, "Are we going to go now?"

The Texan nodded at JJ before turning his attention back to Reid and saying loud enough for them all to hear, "So, ya' got a pretty lady coming with ya' to worry over ya'. Do ya' wanna get goin'?"

They all saw Reid nod slightly in response and watched at the medic and another loaded Reid into the ambulance and JJ climb in after them.

They continued to stand there as it pulled away from the kerb and drove off down to the road blocks where a uniformed officer moved two of them aside to allow them through. Then the ambulance was off, its sirens yowling out, calling for all drivers to move out of its path as it made its way to the nearest hospital.

* * *

"So, what do you think it was like?" A voice asked on the public transport, known as a bus. It was a light, soft voice, that of a woman.

"Ohh... I don't know. Probably really dangerous and volatile," a deeper, rougher voice replied – the voice of a  _bad_   _boy_. A naughty,  _naughty_  boy.

That boy should say he is sorry, he should apologize... it is not nice to be naughty. Mammy always said  _'if ye not a nice wee boy, then ye won't be able te marry a nice pretty lady!'_

Is that girl he is talking to pretty? Is she nice and friendly? Does she have a nice smile? Are her eyes blue? Or green? Or brown? Or grey? He does not like grey though... grey's a dull colour. A horrible colour... a scary colour when it's dark.

It goes so very dark. And becomes so very scary. He does not like grey... brown is better... so is blue... and green... and red... and yellow... and all the pretty colours seen on a summer's day.

Pretty colours... pretty colours. Pretty names written in all sorts of pretty colours... that is what he can see. On a big, shiny screen... it flashes by his eyes... with a big,  _white_  building on.

White is a nice colour... mammy always wore white. It made her look pretty, he liked it when mammy looked pretty, she looked nice when she wore white and looked pretty...

A group of people appear on the big, shiny screen... one of them is chocolate coloured, he likes chocolate but mammy never let him have too much, said it was bad for him – would make him into a naughty boy... another one is white, pale skinned... a pretty girl with dark hair, ohh... she looks like mammy, but she is not wearing white – she should be wearing white!

She would look so pretty in white, so nice and pretty...

Another man, he looks grumpy... like daddy did before he went away, before he hit mammy and she made him go away... she had a big stain on her pretty, white dress that day... she had to get a new one then...

And another one, he is old... he has funny grey hair... grey... no... he does not like grey... grey is not nice... grey is scary... grey is mean...

Ohh... what is that funny buzzing? Why does it hurt his head? Why is he the only one who can hear it? Why is his eyesight going funny? Why does he feel sleepy? Why does he feel something crawling under his skin? Like bugs? Oh! He does not like bugs... bugs are dirty... bugs are buzzy... bugs are-

* * *

Oh, he's on a bus, in the city. He's away from there. They can't catch what isn't there can they?

He smiles darkly and a passenger looks at him funny, like they're afraid of him. With good reason to be. He's not very nice sometimes.

But not today, not now. He's got to focus on the problem at hand. He's got to fix the broken people... he's got to get them fixed. How else are they going to be able to catch him?

It's a shame he doesn't know how he got here... such a great shame. He really should try to not black out. It's not good, could cause him some trouble. That it could, that it could.

He stands and hits the button signalling the driver to pull over. He hops off the bus and onto the busy side-walk in the centre of the city. He strides away from the bus and down the street.

He sees a sign that he's ingrained into his mind. It helps him, to landmark things.

He smiles at it and takes a swift turn, down the alleyway and then a sharp right towards the end. He comes face-to-face with a locked door. He takes out a key from his jacket pocket and unlocks the door. He slides in through the now open doorway and closes it gently behind him before strolling up the stairs to another door, he unlocks it with a different key from a different pocket.

Then, still with a smile upon his face, he enters his workshop and looks at one of his completed masterpieces.

* * *

Hotch stood and waited silently for the team leader of the bomb squad to come out and give him the all-clear.

Of course, he didn't have to wait very long. The B.S leader came over and said to him, "The bomb's out of there Hotch. It's all yours."

Hotch thanked him before he and his team re-entered the City Hall and made their way up to the Mayor's office, via the stairs.

They entered the room; Morgan immediately went over to the two guys from B.S and started conversing with them about the bomb, Rossi went over the desk and looked at it with interest, Emily and Hotch went over to the wall that had a Reid-sized hand-print on it and watched as a tech set up a black-light, signalled for someone to draw the blinds, and switched it on.

Hotch and Emily stood and stared with complete and utter confusion at the wall. It was full of shapes and symbols – some ranging from modern day gang-symbols to the most archaic symbols from the Ancient Egyptians and many others.

Emily stared at for a moment longer before saying, "We're definitely going to need Reid for this."

Hotch, Morgan and Rossi couldn't agree more with her.


	3. Chapter 3

Reid lay down on the hospital bed and listened to JJ as she spoke to Hotch on her cellphone. He really didn't want to be lying here on this brick-based bed when Hotch and the others needed him.

He groaned as he shifted his weight slightly and his ankle decided to make its presence known to him. Damn it, sometimes he hated refusing the 'good stuff' when it came to injuries... but he could handle the pain. High school wasn't a place of safe learning after all – getting the crap kicked out of you was pretty common.

He heard JJ say goodbye to Hotch before snapping her cell phone shut and shoving it into her black, Prada purse. It sort of suited her, the purse. It was pricey, but simple – kind of like JJ. She wasn't a cheap girl and though she looked too good to touch she was ever so simple when it came to her feelings. Black was black and white was white – no in-between.

"JJ," Reid croaked, he frowned – he definitely needed some water if he sounded like a frog.

"Reid baby, are you still in pain? I could get someone?" JJ crooned over him, like a mother – which, technically, she was – and Reid found himself thinking back to his own mother for a moment. He did so miss be coddled by his mother... when she was lucid and didn't think there were people coming to kill her and other such things.

"No, JJ. The pain's fine, I don't need any... nothing," he muttered, "although, some water would be nice."

He smiled at her gratefully when she poured some water from the water jug into a glass and handed him it.

Taking a sip he smiled as the water slid down his throat and soothed his throat.

"Thanks JJ," he smiled at her and sat up properly in the bed, "What's Hotch got?"

She smiled at him, he was far too desperate for something to do. So she decided to humour him; she didn't want to be stuck with a grumpy Reid.

"Hotch said that the Bomb Squad gave the all clear and the others went in. They checked the wall and found a group of symbols that they don't understand... it's looking to be your-"

"Job, yeah..." Reid cut in and sighed, rubbing a hand over his face, "Call Hotch back and tell him that once I have this ankle put in a cast and discharged I can help out with the symbols. Okay?"

"Okay, Spence... oh, I think that's the doctor with the cast stuff!" JJ said as she noticed a tall, female doctor strolling down the corridor with a nurse in-tow.

"Oh finally! I'll be getting out of here soon!" Reid sighed happily before wincing from the pain in his ankle, "Ow..."

* * *

"Morgan, how was the bomb wired?" Hotch asked, once he had turned his attention away from the decorative wall.

Morgan looked at him with a single raised eyebrow before answering, "Pretty simply actually. This guy just had the standard set-up; red wire, black wire, standard count-down that was remotely triggered. That's probably the only unusual thing about it. There's also a wire that led to a transmitter – started transmitting after it was diffused."

Hotch processed this information for a moment before saying, "Has the transmitter been stopped?"

Morgan nodded and replied, "Yeah. I asked one of the techs to bag it and check it out for prints and stuff. I'm going to call Garcia and see if she can get a trace on it or something."

"Alright, do that." Hotch turned away from him and went over to Rossi who was standing by the Mayor's desk with a look of contemplation upon his wrinkled, solemn face. "David? What you thinking about?"

Rossi looked up at Hotch with confusion in his eyes, as though he was surprised that Hotch was there. It took him a moment or two to put his thoughts into words.

"I was thinking about how difficult it would be for someone to get all the way up here." Rossi leaned against the desk and idly stared at the wall. "It's a public building but, this floor, well, it wouldn't be easily accessed by any random civilian. They'd be a guard on each entrance to this floor and with the CCTV cameras on all the floors, he couldn't have gotten in and out without  _someone_  noticing him."

"Not to mention the fact that he had a bomb with him... and I'm guessing a can of paint – for the wall," Prentiss joined them by the desk, a pad of paper in her hand with some notes on it and a camera which she had used to take some photographs of the wall.

"I'm going to go to the hospital and let Reid have a look at these," Prentiss said as she turned and left the room.

Hotch and Rossi remained where they were, both now staring at the wall and thinking about possible ways the Unsub could've entered the City Hall.

* * *

Prentiss strode into the Hospital's main entrance and made her way over to the nurse's station. She stood and waited for a moment whilst the nurse on the desk finished checking over a chart for what Emily supposed was a trainee nurse.

The nurse smiled at her and, once she had finished with the chart and trainee nurse, came over to Prentiss and said politely, her voice sounding soft and tinted with an Irish accent, "Hello, how can I help you?"

Prentiss smiled at her and said, straight to the point, "I'm here to see Spencer Reid. He was brought in earlier today with a suspected broken ankle."

The nurse nodded and looked through the computer database saying to Emily, "I have to ask, are you family or-"

"I'm a colleague. I work with him," Prentiss cut in, "I need to speak with him about the work we're currently doing," she pulled out her federal ID and watched as the nurse took one look at it before nodding and searching for Reid's room – which she found.

"He's up on the fourth floor, room 231," the nurse smiled at her as Prentiss nodded to her in thanks and made her way up to Reid's room – with the notes and photographs she'd taken at the scene. She desperately hoped that Reid could make sense of them, she really did.

* * *

"Spence... what are you doing?" JJ asked as she re-entered Reid's room carrying a tray of 'real' food from the fast food place on the street corner. She placed the tray down on the bedside-table and looked at Reid with a single raised eyebrow.

"I'm... I'm..." Reid floundered for words to explain what he was doing, "I'm trying... I was... I mean I... I was trying to... to... to read..." he looked lamely.

She smiled at him and said, "You were reading, without a book and with a big dreamy smile on your face while House Wife's is on the TV in the corner of the room? Alright..." her smile widened even more when Reid turned a cute shade of embarrassed red and looked at everything except her and the TV.

"I... It was... I was... I was watching it purely... to... to...try and u-understand the reasoning behind... spouses cheating and... and... and-" he said indignantly, trying desperately to find a good excuse.

"Because you are addicted to it?" JJ added with a mischievous glint in her eyes and a Cheshire-cat grin on her face.

Reid didn't answer, he merely found great interest in the white wash walls around him. JJ shook her head in amusement and silently unpacked the grand feast for the two of them; each of them had a cheeseburger and fries and a large cup of strong coffee.

Just as she and Reid were about to dig into their food Prentiss walked into the room carrying a small wad of papers that caught Reid's attention immediately.

"Emily!" Reid exclaimed with a smile, "What's that?", straight to business. He was sat on his bed with a large cast around his foot; which already had some interesting markings on it. Prentiss smiled at him and came over to the bed.

"Hey JJ, Reid," she greeted the pair of them and placed the papers on the table next to Reid's cheeseburger, "These are just some notes I made on the wall and a couple of photographs of it. You can look at them after you've eaten Reid. You need your strength otherwise your big old brain won't be working at the top of its game."

Reid looked at her, pouting, and Prentiss had to stem a giggle; he truly did look cute when he did that, but she wasn't going to let him sway her judgement. He ate his food first, then he could play 'boy genius'.

* * *

Rossi stood up fully, no longer leaning against the desk, and walked slowly over to the door of the Mayor's office, his eyes scanning over everything; the carpet, the door frame, the lights, the walls themselves and the people still milling around in the room. He slipped through the door, over the threshold, and out into the long corridor. He looked at each side of it – the left hand side and the right hand side – trying to see where the CCTV cameras were. He spotted one on the left side of the corridor, it was facing towards the right leaving half of the left hand side corridor blind – that's not very good security. He looked again at the right hand side of the corridor and spied where a camera would normally be, he frowned at it and walked over, stopping directly underneath the camera base-frame. He looked down at the other camera and noticed that it moved in an automated pattern – it panned from the far right hand side of the corridor over to the split in the corridor; where another corridor was, before panning back around to the right side.

Rossi looked at it for a moment longer before realising that this was how the Unsub had got onto this floor. He set off for the security office down on the second floor where Hotch had gone to earlier, he needed to tell Hotch what he'd found out.

* * *

"Okay, I've eaten my food, the TV is now  _off_  and I'm really,  _really_  desperate for something to do!" Reid exclaimed, he looked at Prentiss who looked at JJ and the two girls both silently agreed to let Reid look at what Prentiss had bought.

"Alright Reid. Here are some small sketches and possible notes I made when I was at the scene and a couple of photographs of the wall. As you can see it's full of archaic symbols and random letters," Prentiss said as she passed the papers over, which Reid promptly snatched off her and scanned through, "I think some of the symbols mean 'water' or 'river' and some of the others-"

"No, no, no... those symbols are just there to distract you... it's pretty easy... the sheer quantity of shapes and symbols on the wall are designed to make your brain more active, as it has to analyse all of these symbols simultaneously... ingenious really," Reid said, his speech's tempo increasing and he free hand waving about as he explained, his eyes still focused intently on the photographs, "Do you have a pen?"

"Err... yeah," Prentiss handed Reid a ball-point, black-ink pen. Reid nodded his head in thanks to her before picking up the pad of paper and drawing a large X and a noughts-and-crosses-box."What are you doing Reid?"

He was silent for a moment as he wrote the letters of the alphabet down; from A to B, underneath the shapes he'd drawn, "I'm doing a Masonic Cipher," he answered, as though that would explain everything.

"What?" JJ said, she looked at him with a confused look which Prentiss mirrored;  _they_  had no idea what a Masonic Cipher was.

"Oh. It's a type of code that was used by the Mason's. The way it works is this; you have a keyword that you place in the boxes on the three-by-three grid – with two letters per box. You then add the rest of the alphabet; in alphabetical order, excluding the letters you've already put in for the entire grid and for the X too. Each letter corresponds to the outline of the box it is put in, the second letter however is the outline of the box it is put in including a dot in that outline. Once you've done that you can decode any message that's given to you in the Masonic Cipher." Reid answered as he looked at the photographs trying to find out what the keyword could be.

"Oh." Prentiss said, she was pretty surprised at that, this Unsub was using codes and ciphers that only Reid really had any hope of breaking; she hadn't even  _heard_  of a Masonic Cipher, she'd never be able to break one! "So, do you know what the keyword is?"

"I don't..." Reid broke off as he looked at a full length photograph of the wall and noticed that in the top, right-hand corner of the wall itself were three  _tiny_  letters, he looked at JJ and Prentiss and said hurriedly, "Do either of you have something that I can use to magnify this with?"

Prentiss checked in her pockets but didn't find anything whilst JJ looked around the room and spotted the glass of water – still half full. She smiled and picked it up, "Would this do?" she asked Reid innocently.

"Yes! JJ... you're an Angel!" Reid smiled at her as she passed him the glass which he then used to magnify the section of the photograph and was rewarded with the needed keyword. "I've got it."

"Brilliant!" Prentiss said, "What is it?"

"It's 'B.A.U'," Reid answered looking at her with a raised eyebrow. He then looked back at his notes and pencilled in the keyword and the rest of the alphabet. He then could finally start to decode the message given to them by the Unsub. "Tell Hotch that I'll have this decoded in a little while." he said to JJ who nodded and turned, left the room; pulling out her cellphone as she did.

* * *

Reid smiled triumphantly at the decoded message then frowned as he read it. Something wasn't right. Something was wrong... he just couldn't understand what...

"Oh no..." he muttered.

"What Reid?" Prentiss asked looking over at him curiously.

"There's... the-there's no..." Reid struggled to say the words, his mind working furiously hard to try and figure out what was wrong...

"There's no what?" Prentiss asked again, sitting up fully in the hospital chair she was in. Reid now had her full attention.

"There's... there's no clue... he... he didn't... give us one..." Reid managed to say, he slumped back; defeated. It was over... no clue, no way of finding the bomb...

He looked over at Prentiss sadness and resignation in his eyes and said, "It's over... we lose."

* * *

"Hotch, yeah... Reid says he can decode it... yeah, I don't think it'll take him long... It's Reid, he can do this easy... he says it's a Masonic Cipher... Yeah... I'll call you when he's done... okay, bye." JJ hung open and slid her cell phone into her suit-jacket pocket before going over to the lift and hitting the ground floor button.

She decided to go and get a couple of coffees for her, Emily and Spence... hell they were all caffeine fiends and they could sure do with a top-up.

As the lift doors opened she stepped through them, swiftly avoiding a hospital gurney and paramedic. She made her way out the doors and across the street and into the coffee shop next to the fast food place she'd got Reid's 'dinner' from.

She ordered three espressos' – to go – and waited as the guy behind the counter prepared them for her. She looked out through the windows and saw a man and woman, holding hands and laughing and smiling at each other as though they were the only two things in the entire world. She smiled sadly; she wished she was home... she really did.

She was brought back from her musings by the guy handing her the drinks – in a paper cup holder – and she passed him a couple of dollars, telling him to keep the change.

She left the shop and proceeded back across the street, into the hospital, up in the lift to Reid's floor and off towards his room. She couldn't help but think of that couple; young love that seemed a lot more pure than she remembered from her own personal experiences... sometimes she wished she could change that. Only sometimes though – who knows what life would have been like for her if she'd had that young love... who knows indeed.

She pushed open the door to Reid's room and smiled at them, holding up the drinks and saying, "I thought we could all do with some coffee."

She stopped smiling though when she noticed the look on Reid's face; one of defeat. "What is it?" she asked looking from Prentiss to Reid.

"Reid says there's no clue... we've got nothing..." Prentiss answered, she was slumped back in her seat – like Reid – and looked at JJ with a dull anger in her eyes, "After all this... we've got nothing!"

"Maybe you missed something Spence," JJ said softly, placing the coffee cup down on the bedside table and placing a hand on his arm. He didn't even seem to notice her, he was just staring at the photographs on the table.

"I'll call Hotch and tell him," Prentiss said, as she stood up and left the room, she glanced back at JJ for a moment and nodded briefly; another silent conversation between the two –  _'look after him'_ ,  _'I will'_ ,  _'I'll be back soon'_ ,  _'Okay'_.

JJ sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed, next to Reid, and slowly slid an arm around his thin frame. She sat there, silently supporting him as Reid continued to stare at the photographs.

* * *

"JJ, has Prentiss arrived with the photographs?... Can Reid decode it?... How long will it take him?... How hard-?... What type of code is it?... A Masonic Cipher?... Call me-... Alright, bye." Hotch hung up and shoved his cell phone into his pocket as he stood in the security room, watching the CCTV of the building - he was looking for one thing in particular; the moment when the camera on the fourth floor, in the right hand side of the corridor was removed.

"Has Reid figured out the code yet?" Rossi asked as he re-entered the room, his little black note-book out and a small pencil in his hand.

"No, not yet. He says it won't take him long," Hotch answered as he watched the camera waiting for it to go black. But, before it did, he noticed something – a glitch in the tape, like a shadow. "Hold on there for a second." He pointed at the screen – the recording was paused and showed a shadow behind the most noticeable image, "What is that?"

"I don't know Sir. It could be a simple glitch, or dirt on the disc." The technician answered looking at the screen to where there was a shadowed and faded image of  _something_.

"Send it to our Technical Analyst at the FBI. Here's work e-mail." Hotch said as he pulled out a small card with Garcia's Federal e-mail on it.

"Yes Sir." The technician immediately set to sending Garcia the recording and Hotch left the room, followed by Rossi, and made his way back up to the fourth floor and to the wall he'd seen the  _shadow_  near to.

He looked at it closely but couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. On a gut instinct he called for a CSI and had him set up a small ultraviolet light – facing the wall – in the corridor.

"Aaron, what are you doing?" Rossi asked, he looked at the wall and then at the UV light wondering what Hotch was up to.

"I'm following a gut instinct David." Hotch answered as the CSI finished setting the lamp up, "Turn it on." he ordered, watching the wall as the CSI turned on the lamp.

"Oh my..." Rossi said, looking at the wall with surprise. One moment it was a plain bit of white-washed wall and the next moment it was filled with letters... or what he supposed were letters.

"I need to call JJ." Hotch said, almost to himself, pulling out his cellphone he began to dial just as it began to ring. "Hello... Prentiss what-... Really... No, we've got something else... A collection of letters... Yes... I'll take a photograph of it now and send it to you... show it to Reid... Don't worry... He'll be alright Emily... He thinks he's failed us, failed me... He'll be okay soon... Okay, bye." Hotch hung up and snapped a shot of the wall with the camera on his cellphone; which he then sent to Prentiss's cell phone. 'Let's hope this is the clue...' he thought as he motioned for a few more CSIs to come over and process the wall.

* * *

Prentiss stood outside the door and dialled Hotch's number, he immediately picked up, "Hotch... Reid says we haven't got a clue... yes... I don't know if some of the-... Letters?... Can you send me a photo of them?... Alright... Reid's not looking very good Hotch... I don't know Hotch. He's acting like he's lost... He thinks he's failed  _us_ ?... You're sure... Okay, bye." Prentiss hung up and waited for a moment until her cell phone beeped, signalling that she'd just received a picture message. She opened up the image and looked at the collection of letters on the  _wall_ ?

She shook her head at it and walked back into the room. She saw JJ sitting next to Reid, her arm around his shoulders – protective, real, reassuring...

She took a breath before saying loudly, as though she hadn't noticed them sitting like that, "I just spoke to Hotch. He says he'd found another code... a group of letters. He thinks you should have a look at them Reid. He thinks they might be the clue."

Reid started and stared at her for a moment dumbly, then nodded. She handed him her cell phone and watched as he looked at the image on it closely.

She left him to that and instead looked at his notepad which had the, now, decoded message on it.

> _**Well I must congratulate you on your recent success** _
> 
> _**youve stopped one bomb now youve got to stop another** _
> 
> _**please reid tell me this didnt take you long since you only have four hours from when the first bomb is diffused** _
> 
> _**tick tock** _
> 
> _**alright since you figured this out spence youve now got to apply your brain to this clue** _
> 
> _**its not hard so I hope you wont over think it** _
> 
> _**toodles** _

Reid looked closely at the series of letters on the screen and thought furiously about how to decode them. He looked at them closely, his brow frowning in concentration.

Prentiss looked at him, then back at the message and said, "Reid." he looked at her abruptly, "Maybe you shouldn't over think this... look at the image and see something so obvious that someone with your IQ might overlook." Reid continued to stare at her for a moment longer, his mind processing her words, before he nodded at her in understanding.

He looked back at the image and tried to just take it in, he tried to just  _see_  it. He saw a group of letters... he saw distinct spaces between them... he saw the tails of some letters backwards, the other way around... he saw how some letters weren't facing the correct way... he saw... he saw!

"Emily!" Reid said, looking up at her with a look of the uttermost urgency. "Does your phone have an ermm... flippy-thing on it? Where you can flip the image? Like a mirror!"

"Err, yeah. Here." Prentiss took the phone off Reid and mirror-imaged the picture, gasping at the result. She quickly passed it back to Reid who smiled widely and said victoriously, "Call Hotch. We've got less than an hour to get to the Union Street Shopping Centre and stop this bomb from Detonating!"

* * *

Hotch answered his cellphone as he and Rossi walked out of the City Hall and made their way over to the black SUV they had, where Morgan was already waiting – in the driver's seat. He listened for a moment to the caller on the other end of the line before saying, "Okay, we'll go straight there. I'll tell the Bomb Squad. Bye," and hanging up.

Rossi continued to walk towards the SUV as Hotch caught the attention of one of the B.S guys and quickly informed him to the phone call he'd just received, "The next bomb is located at Union Street Shopping Center in a Black SUV on the top floor parking lot."

The B.S guy said he'd tell his officer and they'd set off immediately. Hotch thanked him with a nod before making his way over to the SUV and climbing in the front passenger seat; Rossi was in the back talking to a police detective who was scrambling some 'black and whites' to the Shopping Center – it seemed that JJ had called Morgan or Rossi as well to tell them the news.

"Let's go." Hotch said to Morgan as he pulled on his seat belt and Morgan pulled away from the kerb.

* * *

Reid watched sadly as JJ and Prentiss collected their bags and said a hurried goodbye to him before flying out of the room and off to the Shopping Center, leaving him on his own. He sighed and leaned back in the bed, he felt exhausted now. After the initial exhilaration had worn off he felt as though he hadn't slept in days.

He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the prodding in his mind about the fact that he wasn't with his team, he so wanted to be with them. He hated not being wherever they were; he didn't really feel all that safe on his own if truth be told.

Perhaps he had good reason not to feel safe when he was alone.

* * *

He smiled sadly as he watched the inflow and outflow of people through the large double, glass doors. He looked intently, focusing his eyes for certain colours, for certain shapes, for certain people and was rewarded when he captured two out of three within his sight. He watched them avidly, his eyes never straying from, as they made their way over to a parked black SUV and climbed in. They pulled away and he mentally took note of the license plate before refocusing his attention upon the building.

He would bide his time. He would be patient. He would watch. He would wait... and he, as a result of his patience, would be victorious.

* * *

Morgan turned onto the ramp that would take them up to the top floor parking lot of the Shopping Center, his mind focused entirely on getting up the ramp as quickly as possible. He knew that there would be one or two squad cars up there already and he looked quickly in the rear-view mirror, noticing the Bomb Squad van following behind him, driving almost as recklessly!

As the ramp became a clear expanse of concrete he turned the wheel abruptly; so as to let the B.S van get past him without any difficulty, and looked around for a black SUV – other than the one he was currently driving.

He spotted it along with four other squad cars at the far end of the parking lot and so hit the acceleration, revving the engine and sending the SUV towards them.

He would not let this bomb go off. Not here in a parking lot at this Shopping Center. He would not let innocent people be hurt because of this guy and his sick, twisted games.

* * *

Hotch stood beside the FBI owned SUV and watched silently as the Bomb Squad team made their way over to the parked SUV and determined where the bomb actually was. He waited with baited breath, thinking about what could happen if the bomb detonated. He could easily imagine the explosion, the noise, the blast and most defiantly the loss of life.

He tried to push such morbid thoughts from his mind but when he did he thought of Reid and his ankle, and the pain he must have been in when he and Morgan had thought it simply amusing for him to limp around. He hated feeling guilty; he deduced that at that very moment in time as he watched as the bomb squad team disarmed the bomb.

He thought about all the times he'd failed his team, his family and all the times he couldn't protect them as they announced that there had been only 10 seconds left on the timer and that a beacon was flashing.

There was another bomb that had just been armed and they were now, once again, on a time limit.

* * *

He wondered silently to himself; should he acquire his item now, at this present moment in time, or allow its owner's a tad bit longer to idly ignore its contributions to their lives?

He sighed, exasperated by his own indecisiveness. He took a moment to look with more detail at the large, glass doors that were continuing to open and close, what should he do?

 _'I think I'll play a game,'_  he decided as he stepped off the side walk and made his way quickly across the road and through the doors, quickly dodging a young child and mother as they hurried out of the doors; the child sporting a bandage on its head.

He walked with a purposeful gait, his eyes never straying to follow others; he had no need to watch them for he saw them all for the blind beings that they are. He made his way down towards the coroner's office, nodding to a security guard and saying in a falsely cheery voice, "Fancy making a new guy do the rush hour shift in this weather aye?"

The security guard laughed and replied, "Better you than me mate," before continuing on in the opposite direction.

He smiled at the guard's obvious ignorance and made his way into the coroner's office and looked in the closet; he picked out a white lab coat that made him look more like a doctor than he would have guessed.

He stepped out of the office and silently made his way up to the fourth floor, in search of his item... of his belonging.

* * *

JJ – who was driving – and Prentiss – who was in the passenger seat – were silent as JJ turned onto the access ramp for the shopping center parking lot. She drove all the way up to the open view parking lot, pulling up just beside the SUV that Hotch was standing beside.

Prentiss jumped out, as did JJ, and they both made their way over to Hotch. Hotch turned to look at them with a frown and said, in his usual tone, "The bomb's been diffused. There's a transmitter on it that's already transmitting. Morgan's called Garcia to see if she can trace it. The next clue is in the SUV."

JJ nodded and said, "I'll go back to the precinct and have all the police officers ready for when we all get back so we can give the full profile."

Hotch nodded at her and watched as she returned to the SUV she'd just arrived in and pulled away.

Prentiss looked at Hotch for a moment before saying, "I'll take a look at the clue and see if I can maybe figure it out. If not I'll head straight over to the hospital and let Reid lose on it."

Hotch nodded once again and watched as Prentiss walked away, towards the black SUV that had Morgan and some Bomb Squad guy in front of.

* * *

Reid sighed dejectedly as he flipped through the TV channels trying to find one that spoke English – why most of them were in Spanish and other random languages he'd never know!

When he did finally come to one that spoke English he noted with satisfaction that no bomb had levelled the Shopping Center and instead of reports on 'the massive loss of life' and 'alleged terrorist attacks' there were reports on 'the FBI investigation currently underway' and 'the high police presence in the vicinity of the Shopping Center'.

He closed his eyes in relief as he thought about the close evasion of death and destruction that could have occurred had he not been able to figure out the clue in time... he couldn't live with the guilt of that, knowing that if he'd been just that bit quicker he could have saved lives... no, he wouldn't have been able to live with that at all.

* * *

Prentiss took a look in the SUV and noticed that there was a single, sealed envelope next to the now diffused bomb. She grabbed a pair of latex gloves from a CSI and picked up the note gingerly, her movements soft and her fingers nimble – much like a scientist working on a particle accelerator... delicacy was required.

She very carefully opened the envelope and removed the letter from it, placing the envelope in the gloved hands of another CSI who immediately placed it within an evidence bag.

Then with baited breath she unfolded the letter and looked at its contents in surprise. She read the note, putting her slightly rust linguistic skills to the test and she was shocked to find what it said.

> **Привет B.A.U**
> 
> **Я надеюсь, что Вы наслаждались этой игрой пока.**
> 
> **Теперь, на следующий.**
> 
> **Вы имеете три часа, не четыре, достигать следующего местоположения.**
> 
> **Таким образом вот - ваши ключи;**
> 
> **В месте древнего названия**
> 
> **На отдыхающем месте тех, которые давно уводят,**
> 
> **Больше так г. Вилкес и его улица,**
> 
> **Позади большого Дуба и рядом с плачущим Ангелом,**
> 
> **то, где ваш приз ждет.**
> 
> **Лучше всего поспешите теперь, удача.**

Prentiss hurriedly made her way over to Hotch and said to him, "I know where the next bomb is."

Hotch looked at her with a raised eyebrow, surprise evident on his face that she had figured out the next clue, "You're sure?"

"Well, I don't know exactly where it is, but I have translated the message," Prentiss corrected herself quickly, she then proceeded to read the message aloud.

"Hello B.A.U I hope you've enjoyed this game so far. Now, onto the next one. You have three hours, not four, to reach the next location. So here are your clues; In a place of ancient name, On the resting place of those long since gone, More so Mr Wilkes and his street, Behind the great Oak and next to the weeping Angel, Is where your prize awaits. Best hurry now, good luck."


	4. Chapter 4

He bypassed several nurses and other doctors on the fourth floor and quickly looked up the exact room his item was in on the nurse's stations computer. He noticed that there were a few dosages of medicine on the shelves behind the nurse's desk and quickly found an anaesthetic and picked up a syringe. He placed both into one of the pockets of the lab coat and smiled to himself as he walked away.

As he walked along a corridor and over to the room he looked in briefly at one of the rooms he passed and saw a mid-aged male with several casts on his extremities who was dozing in his bed. He also saw a wheelchair in the corner of the room, he personally thought that would be of some use so he discretely entered the room and wheeled it out into the corridor.

He continued then on his way to room 231 and to his belonging... he thought it was time he took it.

* * *

Reid was just starting to doze off when he heard the door to his room open, almost silently, and the distinct sound of footfalls on the lino floor. He didn't move or give any impression that he was awake because his gut just told him something was wrong, that something was off... ever since Tobias Hankel he'd learnt to listen to his gut even if it defied reason.

He heard a soft sound also, constant, with a little squeak, like rubber. Maybe a wheelchair or something like that. He didn't open his eyes to find out for certain, he just continued to breath normally giving the impression that for all intents and purposes he was in a deep, relaxed slumber.

He then heard the door close again, almost silently except for the little click as the door handle turned. He risked opening his eyes minutely, so they were nothing more than thin slits, and most definitely did not like what he saw.

A man, about six-foot-two, with blackish/brown hair and a syringe in his left hand; that looked to be filled with something. Now Reid definitely knew something was off because he wasn't to have any sort of medication, he had told his doctor and made sure to inform the nurses so this guy must either be new or... or not a doctor!

In that split second that it took Reid to come to that conclusion the man had turned around and saw that Reid was indeed awake. Just as the guy moved towards him, Reid shouted as loud as he possibly could, "HELP ME! SOMEONE HELP!"

And just like that the guy abruptly turned away, opened the door and ran off down the corridor, leaving a terrified Reid and several shocked and surprised nurses.

* * *

'Ohh, my dear boy, you're so unique... I do wish I could keep you forever. I really do,' he thought to himself as he wheeled the wheelchair into the room and stopped it beside his slumbering item. 'You look so very innocent like this... asleep... vulnerable... alone.'

He walked over to the door and closed it as silently as he could, but it was not silent enough because he was certain that his boy would have heard it; he did have such sensitive hearing.

He turned around with the syringe in his hand and was startled to see his boy wide-awake, staring at him. He moved quickly towards him, anticipating a shout for help, but was too late to pre-empt it.

"HELP ME! SOMEONE HELP!" his boy shouted, his voice ever so loud and filled with fear.

He knew he could not take him now, no not now, there was too much commotion about. So he turned abruptly, making a split-second decision, and ran out of the room and down the corridor as quickly as his long, muscular legs could carry him. He ran and ran all the way to the emergency exit stairwell and shed the white lab coat as he made his way down the stairs and into the underground parking area of the hospital.

From there he quickly made his way out onto the side-walk and joined the throngs of people commuting all over the place. Lost in a sea of faces. One amongst a thousand. One man amongst over a million people.

* * *

Hotch was driving back to HQ when he cellphone rang, he cursed silently and pulled it out of his pocket and quickly answered it, "SSA Aaron Hotchner."

He listened intently to the person speaking on the other end, leaving Prentiss, Morgan and Rossi to wonder what he was being told, but they figured it was nothing good since he was scowling.

"I understand... yes... I'll be right there... do you have security?... can you put someone outside his room until I get there and-... yes, thank-you. Goodbye," He snapped his cellphone shut and swung a left at the next turning, giving everyone in the SUV a fright.

"Yo man! What's with the crazy driving?" Morgan exclaimed as he grabbed the head-rest of Rossi's seat in an effort to steady himself.

"Reid was attacked by someone in his room ten minutes ago," Hotch answered quietly, stopping Morgan from making any other comment about his driving except to say,

"Drive faster."

* * *

When Hotch and the others arrived at the hospital they knew immediately where Reid's room was located, not because of the fact that Prentiss had been to Reid's room nor owing to the fact that the nurses and doctors practically dragged them there. No. They'd located Reid's so suddenly because it was the only room where there were shouts and screams about Gabriel and Tobias...

Morgan and Hotch immediately broke out into a run, careening along the corridors, happily leaving Rossi and Prentiss to explain and hurry along behind them. As they bolted up the emergency staircase up to the fourth floor they both accepted the fact that they couldn't both go in to Reid and try to calm him down... but they didn't want to discuss it just yet.

They exploded out of the emergency staircase onto the fourth floor in such a flurry that they nearly gave several nurses and patients heart attacks!

Rossi and Prentiss gave them a hurried apology as they followed in the wake of their other two team-members and absently thought that Hotch must've been working out to keep pace with Morgan.

Hotch and Morgan finally halted in their race outside the door to Reid's room. They both looked to one another and after a single, heart-achingly long moment Hotch nodded to Morgan, giving him his permission to calm Reid.

Morgan's eyes showed a sort of gratitude at being permission to help Reid. He'd always felt deep down that he'd failed Reid back then when Tobias had taken him... he wanted to make up for his mistake then by helping now.

Rossi and Prentiss stopped, huffing and puffing, next to Hotch and watched in silence as Morgan gripped the door handle and opened the door revealing...

chaos.

* * *

Reid knew he should stop. He knew that consciously and logically he was not as hysterical as he may have seemed to several of the nurses who were currently trying to restrain him. He also knew that he should stop struggling but he just couldn't get his body to respond to the sensible, rational part of his mind. He was running on adrenalin and reacting on instinct and  _man_  did he hate it!

He wasn't meant to  _be_  like this! He was  _supposed_  to be calm and controlled, not freaking out and fighting furiously with the nurses who were  _trying_  to help him!

He fought them madly, without thought and reason to whether or not they were or were not what his terrified mind was showing him.

He knew he was screaming and shouting; words that were mostly incoherent and more like something a religious nut would screech out. "Gabriel! Revelations! Jehovah! Right hand of God!" He certainly acknowledged he  _sounded_  nuts... heck, maybe he  _was_  nuts at that moment in time! He  _had_  nearly been kidnapped...  _again_.

He grappled with the nurse who had a tight, desperate grip on his left forearm, his extensive knowledge of everything he could learn finally put to use when he used a trick he'd read about in a martial arts book. He relaxed his arm, allowing her to control it easier, and as she loosened her grip he acted super-quick to twist his arm and pull it from her grasp. He then, whilst she was still comprehending the move, grabbed the hand of the other nurse who had a hold of his right arm. He removed her hand from his arm relatively easily and sprung from the bed just as the first nurse finally moved into action.

He dodged her and, still screaming to his knowledge, dove towards the door which opened.

He stopped. His hair a mess, his eyes wild and like a cornered animal, his entire, gangly frame shaking and the screams from his lips dying.

"Reid?" Morgan breathed, his eyes widening dramatically, "Reid... are you-"

"I hate stalkers..." Was all Reid muttered before he collapsed to the floor and stared at it, observing the intricate patterns of hospital lino.

Morgan crouched down, in front of the man he considered to be a younger brother to him, and said, "Same here kid. Same here..."

* * *

Hotch was standing outside the opened door watching as Morgan and Reid had a strange sort of half-mumbled and half-silent conversation. He spied one of the nurses creeping up behind Reid with a syringe, probably containing a tranquilliser, and he managed to discreetly catch their eye. He shook his head minutely and with a dark, deadly 'if-you-even-attempt-to-give-him-that-I'll-shoot-you' he watched as the nurse backed away, just as silently as he'd been coming up behind  _his_  surrogate-son.

He knew he considered Reid to be a son, the boy was so young and so emotionally immature that sometimes it was like dealing with Jack only on the other end of the spectrum; where Jack shouted and threw a tantrum when he was sad or upset, Reid simply bottled it up and hid it away, but the principle was the same.

* * *

"NO! NO! NO!"

He'd lost him,  _his_  item, "NO!" he screamed in frustration, slamming his balled up fist against the wall before him. It was thin plaster and so crumpled under his powerful, anger-filled punch.

He turned abruptly and walked over to the small window in his dingy flat. He looked outside and watched, with barely contained anger, all the ignorant and idiotic people walking along the street, oblivious to him. They were always oblivious to him.

He'd done  _so much_  to help them! He'd sacrificed  _every_ thing just to help  _them_  and  _this_  was how they repaid him! He turned away from the window quickly as he felt his facial features morph in anger; his eyes became darker, his mouth a twisted, maniacal grin and his skin a flushed, dark, angry red.

He paced furiously around the little dingy flat with its single bedroom and kitchen/living room and it's pathetic excuse for a bathroom. He  _should_  be living somewhere fancy and swanky not somewhere down in the dumps! He deserved better than  _this_! He  _knew_  that, he  _wanted_  that but he  _couldn't_  have that... not yet. Not until he'd finished this, regardless of the final outcome.

He sat in a chair and took in the kitchen/living room he was in. It's walls were old, aged and cracked with fading baby blue paint on them. The kitchen; with its chipped tiles and defective cooker, the caveman-era fridge and the broken sink with its missing plumbing. The threadbare rug on the bare-board floor in front of him. The tiny, gas lamp that he used to light the flat since the electrics were temperamental. The damaged door leading to his room and the one behind leading to the bathroom; complete with missing toilet and shower.

He sighed and stood up again, his anger mostly gone. As he stood, his attention focused on the laptop he had; the only piece of working, modern equipment in the entire flat.

He made his way over to it, on the spindle-legged table in the corner of the room, closest to the window so as to gain as much light as possible. He moved the mouse and watched as the previously black screen burst into life in a flash of digitally created colours. He clicked on the connection set-up he'd made and sat back, patiently watching and waiting for when the bleeping light in the cemetery would stop and another would automatically begin.

He knew he should stop this now. Knew he should try and move on but... how he  _loved_  his games...

* * *

Reid and Morgan continued to speak in hushed tones, unaware of the others; whether they were nurses or the team he'd come to call family, the pair just ignored everything but their conversation.

They talked about anything they could think of in the here and now and Hotch thought it fascinating and unique the way they could both ignore the world and the horrors and problems around them and simply focus on a conversation about 'Back to the Future'.

Reid was sat, in a slightly awkward position, with his broken ankle causing his leg to be splayed out and the other leg tucked up beneath it, his hands tapping the floor unconsciously as he chatted to Morgan about the science behind the DeLorean's time-travelling escapades.

Morgan, sat more comfortably than Reid, listened and argued with Reid on the smallest of details, even when he was wrong, simply to keep the kid focused on something out than the freak that had tried to kidnap him.

Then, when everything was all relaxing and calming down, Prentiss muttered to Hotch, 'We haven't got much time left Hotch, we need to figure out the clue.'

And Reid's attention snapped from Morgan to her, his eyes dark and filled with fiery curiosity and ice-cold fear; juxtaposed in their very nature. Morgan wanted to turn and tell Prentiss where to go but he didn't, he tried to get Reid' attention focused back on him, 'Hey kid, what about when Marty saw himself playing the guitar in the Back to the Future II? That's gotta be a paradox in the making right?'

Reid ignored him though, his entire attention focused on Prentiss who was starting to feel somewhat uncomfortable with the continuous, unfaltering, unblinking stare she was getting from Reid; she'd never believed he could have such an intense stare. Insistent and puppy-dog like, yes. Intense and persistently determined, no.

Reid spoke, his voice soft but his words firm, 'What's the clue?'

Hotch looked at Rossi who softly shrugged back, he didn't have a clue as to what to do now. Hotch wanted to sigh and berate Prentiss for mentioning the clue but the damage had already been done. He turned to look at Reid and answered for Emily, 'We found another clue, it was written in Russian and Prentiss translated it. It's a set of riddle-like directions that we haven't been able to figure out yet-'

'Tell me them,' Reid cut in, now looking at Hotch who also noted that Reid had quite the forceful, persistently determined stare that Prentiss had noticed.

Hotch thought for a moment before nodding and turning to Prentiss, who got the message and pulled out the pad with the clue written on it. She read it aloud for Reid to hear, 'Hello B.A.U I hope you've enjoyed this game so far. Now, onto the next one. You have three hours, not four, to reach the next location. So here are your clues; In a place of ancient name, On the resting place of those long since gone, More so Mr Wilkes and his street, Behind the great Oak and next to the weeping Angel, Is where your prize awaits. Best hurry now, good luck.'

Once Emily had finished reading the clue she looked up and watched Reid, as did everyone else; including the nurses, as he cast his mind back and mulled over the clues.

He thought of the maps he'd poured over when they'd first got this case.

He thought of the many names and places he'd thought the first bomb could be before striking them off.

He thought of the name of every cemetery in Washington D.C and the surrounding area.

He thought about the history of Washington D.C and he considered the names from ancient times that he knew had been applied to it.

He thought of every name he'd seen on the maps that was ancient; as in  _old_  old. Ancient as in...

"Alexandria National Cemetery.' He whispered to himself.

He looked up at his team members and said, his voice louder, 'the next bomb is in Alexandria National Cemetery.'

* * *

Hotch stood outside the door to Reid's room as he waited for the kid to get changed back into the clothes he'd been wearing before his accident; he'd wanted to leave Reid at the hospital but his gut said that was a bad idea, so Reid had to change from the hospital scrubs he'd been wearing.

He didn't mind Reid keeping them on but he'd insisted that he would not, under any circumstances been seen dead walking around Washington D.C in hospital scrubs... he'd said it was a 'recipe for disaster!'

Morgan was pacing impatiently as he waited for the kid also, he'd wanted to leave Reid at the hospital and stand guard outside his door; daring anyone to try and enter Reid's room, but Hotch had caved to the kids demands and was allowing him to come with!

He thought it to be brash and stupid, what if Reid was put in the line of fire? What if Reid ended up standing next to the bomb? What if, what if... too many what if's for his liking and he didn't like that. Although, he reasoned, life was always just one big, mostly unanswered question wasn't it? Well, for him it was.

* * *

Once Reid had finally managed to pull on his trousers, and not fall flat on his face. He turned his attention to the crutches he'd been given to help him around. His shirt was crumpled and he didn't bother tucking it into his pants waist so he looked rather dishevelled; couple that with his hair, that looked as though he'd been hanging out a window doing ninety down the free-way, and he looked quite appealing to the female nurses on the floor when he walked out – hopped out technically speaking – into the hall.

Hotch and Morgan turned to look at him, and blinked. Reid, to them, looked different than he had done just a few hours ago. He looked younger and... and _, what's word those silly teenage girls use_ , Hotch thought,  _fit? Yes, that's it. He looked younger and fitter. Dear heavens! Are those nurses eyeing up my surrogate son? Oh my, they are!_

Reid looked from one to the other and said, 'what?'

* * *

The three of them left the hospital and made their way over to the SUV where Rossi and Prentiss were sitting. On the way out Reid had become the proud owner of several phone numbers from several pretty nurses but he'd just looked lost with the obvious flirting.

Morgan idly wondered if he should become a shrimp and wear geeky clothing... he might actually get more numbers without trying.

As it was, Prentiss was in the front passenger seat and Rossi was in the back. Prentiss was on her cellphone to Garcia and Rossi to JJ when Hotch and Morgan opened the driver's door and back passengers door respectively.

Reid waited for Morgan to hop inside the back before awkwardly climbing in himself. Hotch waited for Reid to be in the process of climbing into the SUV before climbing in himself and proceeding to fire-up the engine.

Once Reid was safely in the back and buckled up Hotch pulled away from the hospital and proceeded to drive towards Alexandria National Cemetery.

* * *

He counted out the deck of playing cards in his hand, not really giving the numbers nor meanings of the cards impose upon his mind as he considered other matters. He thought about the third one... the last one... the one they were going to find... he thought about going there himself, he'd be there before them of that he was certain, but what would he do there exactly, what would he say... would he simply stand there and allow them to arrest him? Would he simply aim a weapon at them and die by the hand of a cop? Would he stand in the shadows and watch as they save the great tree that so desperately needed rescuing from him? Or would he just stay where he was and wait for them to come to him? He didn't really know and he idly wondered if he should continue to try and own his item any longer. Would it be counter-productive to him if he took his item, his belonging? Was it even his belonging? He didn't know and it confused and worried him. He didn't know if that boy  _was_  his item, but he also didn't know if he  _wasn't_ .

What would he do to discover the truth? Attempted kidnapping hadn't worked; apparently the boy was sneakier than he looked, and he doubted that he'd be able to simply walk into the boy's home – or hotel room – and have a little chat with him. No, he sincerely doubted he'd be able to do that.

'Only one thing for it then,' he said aloud as he stood, 'only one thing for it.'


	5. Chapter 5

It took them about thirty-minutes to reach Alexandria National Cemetery and a further five minutes to get Reid out of the SUV and hobbling along with them towards the location of the last bomb.

Reid looked around him, taking in all of the grave markers that were in the form of crucifixes and solid stones and weeping Angels... there were so many of them. How were they to find the one they needed to find so as to get to the bomb before it detonated? He sighed as he navigated around a pot hole in the path he was hobbling along. He knew he was falling behind slightly but he didn't care; what he cared about was not falling flat on his face and ending up with another broken limb.

Just as he hoped he was finally getting the hang of the crutches he felt someone barrel into him and before he could make a sound someone clapped a hand over his mouth and dragged him off the path and into the strangely abundant undergrowth and bushes alongside the path.

* * *

The team were talking quietly, none of them paying much attention to Reid behind them; they figured that no-one would be stupid enough as to even come near to him since they were there and looked like they would rip someone apart if they approached their geek... except they weren't paying attention to their geek. Some would consider that to be exceptionally arrogant of them to assume such a thing and then not care for what they were supposed to be protecting, heaven knows how arrogance can ones downfall.

'Okay. So there's Wilkes Street, like it says on the map. But I don't see any "great Oak", Prentiss said as she looked around at the area surrounding them.

'I don't see as sign that says "bomb this way" either,' Morgan muttered, his patience frayed and his temper there for the others to see. He really wasn't enjoying this.

'But I don't see any tree that even remotely looks like a great oak,' Prentiss pressed, 'Maybe Reid got the wrong cemetery.'

'I don't think so,' Rossi said absently as he stared at the building on the other side of the road, 'Aaron.'

'What is it David?' Hotch asked as he looked over where Rossi's gaze was, all he could see was a building with a door.

'Does that door look to be made of Oak to you Aaron?' Rossi asked as he and Hotch crossed the street in unison, leaving the others to trail behind after them.

'Nice catch David,' Hotch said as they stopped in front of the door and Hotch carefully checked the door handle, 'It's not locked.'

'We're not going down there are we?' Prentiss asked, standing behind Morgan as though for protection.

'Well, the clue did say "behind the Great Oak",' Morgan grinned at Prentiss' fear, 'What's wrong? You afraid of the dark?'

'You would be too if you knew what was down there,' Prentiss muttered as Hotch opened the door and looked back at them.

'Someone will have to stay with-' He broke off mid sentence as his eyes widened in worry, 'Reid!'

They all turned around and looked about themselves but they couldn't find their resident geek.

'REID!'

* * *

He fumbled and grappled with whoever it was who had dragged him away from his team but couldn't manage to get away from them and he felt his strength waning and failing him, but he refused to give up just yet.

'Stop struggling boy, I don't want to hurt you,' a gruff voice muttered in his ear, it only served to make Reid thrash about even more with a renewed sense of absolute terror. He would not be kidnapped. He would not! He would-

'I'm trying to save your life you little ruffin!' the voice sounded exasperated and before Reid could do anything more than grab at the hand over his mouth he felt something wack him on the back of his head and heard a dim, 'Sorry lad,' before everything went dark.

* * *

'REID!' Morgan shouted desperately looking around them, trying to see Reid. He hoped that the kid had just slowed down and was about to come ambling along the path any moment now, he really did.

'Morgan!' Hotch said sharply, he grabbed Morgan's arm just before he made to head back the way they'd come, 'I need you to help me with the bomb. If it's in here then we may only have a few minutes.'

Morgan looked at Hotch with anger in his eyes and despair in his heart, 'Hotch, what if this sicko's got Reid? What if the jumped up crazy bastard is hurting him?'

Hotch didn't let go of Morgan's arm and he refused to let his mind even begin to conjure up the sorts of situations Reid could be in at that very moment, 'Morgan, Derek,' he hoped that by using Morgan's first name he could get him to think a bit clearer, 'Right now we can't help Reid. We've got a bomb that we need to disarm in the next four and a half minutes or this whole area is going to become a warzone. Prentiss, David and JJ will look around for Reid; me and you will go and disarm the bomb, okay?'

He waited for a moment praying that Morgan saw the sense in his words; they did not have a lot of time - four-minutes-twenty-two seconds and counting. The words "tick tock" ran through his head as he waited for Morgan to either nod in reply or throw a fit and go off searching for Reid. He would have loved to do the latter, the same as Morgan, but he couldn't. He was responsible for every civilian in the area and he couldn't focus on one person – even if they were a team member/ surrogate son – and leave all the others to their fates. He'd never forgive himself if someone died because he went after Reid... but then again, he wouldn't forgive himself if Reid died because he saved someone else.

* * *

Morgan stood still, silent as a timer in his head began to count down;

Ten... He couldn't do this, he couldn't leave Reid.

Nine... But if he didn't focus on the bomb then there might never be a chance to save Reid.

Eight... But the kid depended on him; they were almost brothers for God's Sake.

Seven... What about all those other people who were in the cemetery? Would he let them die just to save one person?

Six... Could he be that selfish? Would be that selfish?

Five... No, he couldn't do that; he couldn't leave those people to die just for one person, even if that one person was Reid.

Four... But then he'd be betraying someone closer to him than blood, he saw Reid as a younger brother that he had to protect, could he handle knowing he hadn't protected his brother.

Three... He didn't have time, he couldn't be two places at once, he  _had_  to choose.

Two... Reid?

One... Or everyone else?

He took a breath and spoke; he'd made his decision, 'Alright. I'll go with you Hotch and disarm the bomb, but once that's done there's no way you're going to stop me from looking for Reid. You hear?'

'Loud and clear Derek,' Hotch let go of Morgan's arm and entered the doorway, to see what lay beyond the Great Oak.

* * *

He sighed. He closed his eyes slowly. He took a deep, calming breath. He didn't have long. He had to find out for sure. He had to be certain. He couldn't continue to wait. He couldn't handle the suspense. He felt like it was suffocating him. He felt like it was killing him. He couldn't wait anymore, he had to know.

He stood up fully, no longer leaning on the wall, and walked up the steps in the bright sunlight. He took note of the uniformed men and women around him, milling about without a care in the world. He observed their stances and their facial features as they spoke. He could read them like they were books, nothing more than a child's picture book. They gave everything away.

That one over there was having an affair with that man she was speaking to, she looked like she was about to pounce on him in the street. Adultery is considered a sin by the Christian religion is it not? Well, it's a good thing that she wasn't overly religious; no symbol of worshipping a God who allowed his son to die for the walking meat-suits on planet earth.

That one there, by the doors he was heading towards, was a wife beater. He'd lost his chance at a promotion due to that aching side from an old wound so he took it out on the woman who loved him and had given him children; three of them if he had to hazard a guess. Didn't like the loss of control, the feeling on being unimportant but then, who would like that feeling? Of being considered too old, too unfit, too injured, too young, too frail and fragile, too... broken. No-one likes their weaknesses being shown to the world. No-one likes to be vulnerable because when you are vulnerable you are prey; a primal instinct, to not show weakness means you're more likely to survive longer... normally.

He ascended the last step and pushed on the revolving door that would lead him back into a world he had sworn to never enter again...

* * *

He groaned as he slowly became aware of the world around him, correction, the sounds of the world around him; he hadn't opened his eyes yet. He felt like he'd been smacked upside the head with a two-by-four, and he hadn't had that happen to him in... weeks? "I need to get a new job if this is what I keep on getting, knocked out on a daily basis isn't the best thing," he thought to himself as he finally peeled back his eyelids and was met with the view of the darkening skyline.

He gingerly pushed himself up, pointedly ignoring the funny flashes of colour that he saw around him, and when he was finally sitting up he slowly looked around the area where he was. "How did I get here?" he thought as he spied a small fire that had yet to be lit and a bag of what looked to be tins of beans. He tried to think back to before he'd said hello to the darkness and that was when he began to breathe quicker. He'd been kidnapped... again.

'Ah, you're awake I see lad!' A gruff voice echoed around the small clearing he was in. He jumped in fright and looked around to see where the owner of the voice was but he moved his head too fast and the world slanted sideways in a sickening way, 'easy now lad. I did have to wallop you pretty hard on that noggin' of yours,' a hand rested itself on his right shoulder and helped to steady him.

'W-who are you?' Reid croaked, his throat felt dry and like someone had rubbed sand-paper along its sides. He looked up, slowly, at the man who still had his hand resting on Reid's shoulder. The man looked at him with soft, warm eyes that held no malice, "looks can be deceiving though can't they?" he thought to himself as the man answered.

'I'm sorry for having to knock you one on the head but you wouldn't calm down. Understandable I suppose, it's not every day a tramp grabs you from the bushes and proclaims to be trying to save your life is it?' the man smiled a toothy grin at Reid's surprised face, 'what? Couldn't you tell from the dirt and grime and... the beans?' he gestured behind him towards the bag with the bean tins in. At Reid's continued look of surprise the man continued, 'my name's Ben-J. I know the man who's causing you all this hassle with bombs and what-not.'

Reid looked at the man, processing what he'd just said, 'h-how do you know him?' he asked, genuinely intrigued and confused. He forgot the fact that this tramp had walloped him on the head and dragged him away from his friends and instead focused entirely on the story Ben-J was starting to weave.

* * *

'Errm... Hotch? This is a mausoleum. A crypt,' Morgan whispered as he flicked on a flashlight that he'd found in his back pocket. He felt stupid for whispering but he believed that entering a crypt where the dead lay and shouting about and being disrespectful was inherently wrong. It was the Christian in him, he reasoned.

'Yeah, I think I guessed that. Can you see a weeping Angel anywhere?' Hotch glared at Morgan as he held his own flashlight in his hand and ran it over the walls. Of course it was a crypt, it was dark, gloomy and what you'd expect to see in Buffy the Vampire Slayer; of course, he just hoped that no blood-suckers would magically appear. That would be the mother of all ironies in his opinion.

'No but I can see a set of stone steps that lead down to another level. Maybe there's one down there?' Morgan whispered back and made his way over to the steps as silently as he could. He looked back and saw Hotch was right behind him, 'I guess I'll go first then,' he grumbled before he began to descend the steps into almost pure darkness.

* * *

Prentiss and Rossi were walking along the path they'd walked down earlier, looking for any sign of a disturbance... or Reid lying in the bushes looking extremely embarrassed because he'd pitched over on the crutches.

JJ was stood outside the door to the crypt, the sunlight bouncing off her blonde hair making it shine and glow, as she dialled the number for the police precinct and quickly informed them of where they were and what had happened. She quickly hung up and called Garcia to check and see if their resident tech-genius could find any CCTV of Alexandria National Cemetery and help them with the search for Reid.

'You have called the office of supreme brilliance. How may I be of assistance?' a chirpy, sunny voice said as the call was answered.

JJ suppressed a smile at Garcia's antics and said, 'hey Garcia. Listen could you pull up any CCTV of Alexandria National Cemetery in Washington. We think the Unsub might have kidnapped Reid and we need to find out if we can establish a general search area,' she knew the moment she'd mentioned Reid's possible-kidnapping that it was the wrong thing to do because Garcia became frantic.

'Oh my god! My Spency! Oh god JJ! What if something happens to him-' Garcia babbled down the phone and JJ had to cut her off quickly before she began to have a major panic attack.

'Garcia! Just calm down! Reid needs our help, he needs  _your_  help. You're not going to be of use to him if you can't breathe properly so  _please_  calm down and do what I've asked,' JJ said firmly, she didn't have time for this, Reid didn't have time for this.

'Okay... okay... I'll pull them up and look through them and see what I can find,' Garcia said, her voice still quick and high but more controlled, like she was forcing herself to calm down, 'I'll call you or Morgan if I find anything,' she added before cutting the call off before JJ could even say goodbye.

* * *

Garcia typed away, frantically searching for any CCTV footage of the team after they had parked in Alexandria National Cemetery's car park. She had watched the footage of them as they had left the SUV and began to walk down the path, disappearing into the trees and that was when she lost sight of them until the appeared on the other side, on Wilkes Street – minus Reid.

She sifted through the CCTV of all the buildings in the Cemetery as well as any live satellite imagery that she had access to, but she still couldn't find out where Reid had gone. It was starting to make her panic and freak-out; she couldn't find her junior G-man! He was gone! And all she could prove was that he'd disappeared right under the team's noses; they should've been looking out for him!

She stifled a sob and hit the speed dial that would allow her to call JJ and explain to her that she had nothing. Absolutely nothing!

* * *

Prentiss and Rossi reached the SUV and looked around the car park, they couldn't see anything that would tell them where Reid had gone; there were no tyre-tracks, there were no witnesses, there were no other cars. They felt a weight in their stomachs, like an anvil had been dropped from the height of a thousand metres, and they both turned in unison away from the SUV, back towards the path they'd just walked down and saw...

* * *

He stood inside the bustling reception of the place, trying to fight the urge to just turn around and walk back out; to forget about everything and continue with the life he'd managed to forge for himself. He remembered the way the others had been so interested in this world and how he'd just ambled through it, just a traveller, not really meant for it, it was just something to help him while away the years. But then everything changed; everything. And he drifted on again, moving onto another way of life that was very different to the one he had lead. He reasoned that was his curse; to never settle down, to never have a family. Sometimes he hated being him.

"Do you need any help sir?" a woman asked him, wearing the uniform with the usual pristine way – not a hair out of place, not a crease in her blouse – and a false smile upon her lipstick-covered lips. He looked at her for a moment, briefly analysing her aesthetic looks and what, most could not see, was in her cold blue eyes. He immediately took her for a cold hearted woman who had lived a tough life and believed that she was better than everyone else – even if she was on desk duty – he took note of the badge she was wearing for all to see and realised that she'd probably had an argument with a superior and had been stuck with desk duty as a result. He noticed that there was no ring on the hand she was holding a ballpoint pen in; so she wasn't married, too busy trying to advance her career to think about a family. In her mid-thirties – probably about thirty-four – and wearing a fair amount of make-up; to cover the wrinkles that gave her age away. Thin little streaks of grey could be seen in her hair if one looked closely and he looked closely; which told him that she wasn't the natural red-head she was trying to be, their hair turned silver not grey.

He realised that he had not answered her question and smiled slightly at her before answering, "No. I know what I'm looking for," and without giving her a moment to say anything he turned around and made his way through the doors at the opposite end of the reception that lead to the area where only those who worked for D.C's finest could go; not that  _that_  concerned him at all.

* * *

The sun disappeared behind the clouds in the sky and he stepped out onto the sidewalk, looking around himself and through the people who milled around the area. He felt the urge to barrel into several of them just because it would make him feel better, but he tempered the urge and swiftly made his way along the sidewalk passing the Star-bucks that was filled with business executives' who looked to be in need of the caffeine beverages.

As he paused at the crossing he took the time to check the blackberry in his hand to see if it was still receiving a signal; to his delight it was. They only had ten seconds left. Ten seconds until they went BOOM.

* * *

Morgan descended the steps and felt Hotch's breath on his back as he paused at the bottom to look around. He spied a small flashing light that was over on the opposite side of the lower-level of the crypt. He pointed his light towards it and Hotch did the same, which allowed Morgan to see a weeping Angel.

"Guess that's our Angel?" Hotch muttered, as Morgan moved towards it and he followed; making sure he did not trip over anything in the darkness that had only lightened slightly due to both of their flashlights.

"And that's our bomb," Morgan added as he crouched down next to the flashing light and illuminating it fully, revealing a complex grouping of wires and explosives, "Oh man," he breathed looking at the timer that was hidden in the centre of the wiring, which was why he hadn't noticed its luminescent glow before.

Hotch looked to where Morgan's light was directed and spotted the timer. He frowned as he took in the sight of the timer, "Can you disarm it?" he asked, keeping his voice low and trying to keep his fear from seeping through,  _I am not going to die now, I am not going to die without having seen my boy_ , he thought furiously when Morgan did not reply but instead pulled out a Swiss-army knife and found the clippers on it.

He watched in silence, aiming his light at the wires and Morgan's flashlight also, that he'd taken from him so he could use both his hands to disarm the bomb.  _If I survive this I'm going to go to church every Sunday_ , he thought as Morgan selected one of the wires and held it between the clippers.

* * *

"So that's everything you know about him?" Reid asked, looking at Ben-J who nodded, "Why didn't you just go to the police station and tell them this?"

Ben-J laughed and responded, "I tried. They didn't want to listen to me; I'm nothing more than a tramp to them aren't I. God-forbid them lot from believing a word I say, even if I'm right!"

Reid half-shrugged in agreement, he had noticed that the homeless weren't listened to that often in large cities such as D.C – maybe he should write a paper on it? He was about to ask Ben-J another question when Ben-J said, "I think we'd best be getting you back to your friends. They'll be worried about you won't they?"

Reid's eyes widened; he hadn't even thought about his team since Ben-J had begun regaling him with his tale, "Oh! I forgot all about them!"

Ben-J smiled and said, as he stood up and offered a hand for Reid to pull himself up with, "I can understand that and I'm sure they'll forgive you. You weren't for being kidnapped after all."

Reid smiled as he stood up fully and Ben-J helped him with the crutches. Once he had a decent grip on them Ben-J lead him through the bushes where they weren't so thick and onto the path.

Reid looked at Ben-J and said, "Thank you for telling me everything that you just did. If you want some help or something I can-"

"No. Oh no lad! That's alright. I'm fine; you don't need to worry about me. Just go back to your friends and find him before it's too late," Ben-J placed a hand on Reid's shoulder and looked him in the eye, "I don't like the idea of Washington becoming a miniature warzone you see."

Reid nodded again and watched as Ben-J turned away and disappeared into the bushes. After a moment he made his way down the path towards the SUV where he'd left his cellphone and was surprised when he saw Prentiss and Rossi standing in the middle of the car park looking at him like he was a ghost.

* * *

JJ stood beside the door of the crypt and jumped slightly when her cellphone began to belt out the chorus of Muse's song 'Invincible'. She really did need to change that ringtone – it kept on giving her small heart attacks.

"Agent Jareau," she said into the phone and was surprised when she was attacked by Garcia.

" _JJ! I can't find anything on him! He was with you on the path and then he wasn't! He just disappeared! I traced his cell but it's switched off! And what the heck were you guys doing when you just waltzed off and left him to catch-up? I thought you were meant to protect him! I mean, he's part of the team and you just left him on his own_!" Garcia ranted into the mic she wore.

JJ felt like she'd just been slapped in the face and punched in the gut.  _Oh God_ , she thought,  _we left him behind, oh God,_  she suppressed the urge to start sobbing and was about to apologize to Garcia when she heard her name being called.

"JJ!" It was Prentiss and she sounded happy about something,  _oh please let them have found him sitting in the bushes looking embarrassed because he'd tripped, please,_  she thought as she spied Prentiss walk down the path and cross the road with a beaming smile on her face, "We found him."

JJ nearly fell apart there and then but took a deep breath and smiled a watery smile at Prentiss, "Thank God," she said before remembering that Garcia was ranting at her down the phone. She smiled at Prentiss before focusing on Garcia and cutting in on her rant, "GARCIA! We've got him! He's safe..."

Garcia was silent on the other side of the line for a moment before saying, disbelief evident in her voice,  _"Safe? You've got him?"_

"Yes Garcia. We've got him," JJ smiled happily and swallowed a hiccup before continuing, "We'll call you when this is all over and you can coddle Reid in the hospital."

Garcia let loose a laugh/sob and said,  _"Okay. Bye JJ,"_ before hanging up and JJ put her cellphone back in her pocket.

Prentiss looked at JJ and smiled in relief. JJ smiled back at Prentiss and said, "allergies are making my eyes water."

* * *

He stood on the other side of the crossing and stared at the timer on his blackberry. He smiled a dark, evil smile and whispered to himself, "Ten... Nine... Eight... Seven... Six... Five... Four... Three... Two... One... Boom," and he knew that across the city a cave-in had occurred the moment that timer had counted down to zero, "I guess you lose B.A.U."

* * *

The chances of survival after being involved in an explosion which occurs within four-to-six metres are damn-near nil. If you are unlucky enough to be caught in the blast zone then you'll probably be thrown off your feet by the resulting blast wave of supersonic speed that just smacks into you like a pick-up truck. The best possible way to avoid any shrapnel from a normal explosive is to hide behind something or lay down flat; since the main focus for any shrapnel from an explosive device is normally between two and six feet above the ground. Another thing that must never be done is to hold your breath during an explosion; the blast wave is an intense amount of pressure that is pushed outwards by the explosion and will put even more strain on the lungs if you're holding your breath and is likely to do more harm than good; on average six percent of casualties of an explosion die from shrapnel wounds, the other ninety-four percent die more commonly from bleeding of the lungs because of increased pressure.

If an explosive device is situated within an enclosed space then the resulting explosion will be even more intense than if it were out in the open since there is not enough space for the blast wave to travel since it is refracted by the walls of the enclosed space; in this case the walls of the underground section of a crypt.

The underground section of a crypt where there are two BAU Special Agents lying amongst the rubble both supporting a host of injuries; ranging from the most minor of cuts to the most severe of internal bleeding.

And weren't they just damned lucky that they had been at the end directly opposite to the source of the explosion. If they had been anywhere nearer then they might have been crushed by the entire section of ceiling that had collapsed just feet from where they were lying prone.

Of course, the biggest problem for them was that the stairs, the only way out of the crypt, were completely blocked off meaning it would be quite a while before they would be rescued so they would have to wait for rescue to come to them and hope that they survived long enough.

* * *

When the explosion occurred, Reid was busily trying to explain to JJ what he had partially told Prentiss and Rossi only moments before. When the explosion occurred, Prentiss was on her cellphone speaking to Garcia and Rossi to the police precinct.

When the explosion occurred, half-way across town a middle-aged man, standing beside Detective Quince, felt his heart falter and his mind freeze in absolute terror.

When the explosion occurred, a young woman in Quantico, Virginia felt as though the entire world had just stopped and was holding its breath with her as she waited for a response to her frantic questions.

When the explosion occurred, a man was crossing the street when a joy-riding teenager in a stolen BMW came careening down the road, passing the cars on the road, and smashed right into him sending him flying four-feet in the air over the car before landing in a mangled heap on the tarmac road with blood pouring from every orifice on his face; his eyes, his nose, his eyes, his mouth. Everywhere.

When the explosion occurred, a woman was picking up her son and was wearing a false-smile as she wondered when her supposed husband would be back this time from his affair to see her and his son. When the explosion occurred, an old man stopped for a moment in his steady pace when he felt the slight vibrations beneath his feet before moving on muttering, 'I hope they're alright."

* * *

He stood next to Quince feeling faint and hearing the blood rushing around his ears with such a fury that he felt like going and finding this Unsub and doing to him what he'd dreamt of doing to a certain other for so long after he had ruined his life.

_Oh god,_  he thought,  _they can't be dead... no... They can't be..., he_  truly felt like his world had shattered into a billion microscopic pieces and had been melted and moulded into something unrecognisable.

How could he handle living knowing that they were dead because he had left them? How could he live with himself if that really turned out to be the case? The answer; he couldn't. He just couldn't.

'Wait a minute. There were only two down there?' Quince asked whoever he was speaking to on the other end; he hadn't bothered listening to the name, 'Okay. I'm alerting the search & rescue teams right now. Okay. I'll be there in the next ten minutes. Bye."

Hanging up Quince turned to look at him for a moment before strolling to the door of his office and opening it, 'We've got an emergency! Two FBI Agents are trapped in a crypt in Alexandria National Cemetery! There's been an explosion. I want S&R teams ready to go in the next ten minutes! GET TO IT!'

The entire precinct erupted in a bustle of activity as various people fled the room and made their way to the locker rooms to change whilst others put in calls for ambulances and the fire department.

Quince closed the door again and turned to look at him saying, 'So Mr. Gideon. Do you want to meet your old team?'


	6. Chapter 6

An ambulance was called for the man, who'd been hit by a joy-riding teenager, by an elderly-couple that had been just feet behind the man. As they waited for help to arrive, the old man managed to kneel down next to the young man and check for a pulse; which he found after a few minutes of fumbling with the collar of the man's now blood-soaked jacket. It was weak but it was there, meaning that he was still alive; contrary to how he looked with all  _that_  blood.

'How is he Alfred?' The old woman, presumable Alfred's wife, asked her husband of forty-seven years.

"He's got a heart-beak darlin'... I don' know 'bout anythin' else..." Alfred answered, his aged southern-drawl sounding defeated and tired, he hoped this poor lad didn't die.

"The ambulance is on its way Alfred," the old woman said her voice frail and weathered by age.

"Well, I'm sure he'll be a'right Ver'a," Alfred tried to reassure his wife as he slowly rose to his feet, groaning as he did so. They both heard the sound of sirens close by, "See darlin', they're a'ready on their way."

* * *

'Oh my God!' JJ breathed softly as the vibrations in the ground subsided and they noticed small clouds of dust around the door into the crypt.

'Hotch! Morgan!' Prentiss shouted as she dived towards the door; Rossi and JJ not far behind. Reid, due to his crutches, couldn't move much from where he was and knew that if he did he'd get in the way.

'Emily! Wait!' Rossi managed to grab her arm and restrain her as he took control of the situation, 'JJ. Call the emergency services, make sure they're on their way and that they've got heavy-duty equipment; there's been some sort of cave-in. Reid, call Garcia. See if she can get the blueprints of this crypt.'

Reid nodded and both he and JJ fished out their cell phones; he'd retrieved his from the SUV after the little 'kidnap' incident, and each called their respective contacts.

Emily looked at Rossi and said, 'what if they're hurt?'

Rossi, feeling bad because he knew that Emily cared too much sometimes; of course, when she did care about a person she grew emotionally attached to them since she had abandonment issues; probably stemming from her turbulent upbringing. But he couldn't have her doing anything that could get her hurt, 'what if they're not and you go and get yourself injured? How do you think they'll feel knowing you got injured doing something rash?'

Emily blinked and swallowed, before nodding saying quietly, 'you're right... you're right.'

After a few moments Rossi felt it was safe for him to relinquish his grip on Emily's arm and said, his voice its regular timbre and with its reassuring nature, 'why don't we come over here and when the emergency services arrive they can get straight to work?'

Emily just nodded absently and allowed Rossi to gently steer her over towards Reid and JJ; she desperately wanted to go and find Hotch and Morgan. She didn't know how she could handle them being injured... she didn't know how she could handle them being- No! She refused to think like that! They'll be alright! They're Hotch and Morgan; the two toughest of the entire team. No-one got into a fight with either of them unless they wanted to lose... no, they were going to be alright. They had to be...

* * *

He groaned loudly as he reluctantly entered into the world of reality; the world of pain; the world where he was trapped under a large piece of a weeping angel,  _stupid bloody Angel..._

Deciding whether or not to open his eyes and probably see nothing but more darkness he heard the soft sounds of laboured breathing; not his own of course, and decided to open his eyes to see if he could find out where the sound came from.

Whilst he was expecting darkness to greet him he was not prepared from the blinding light from one of the flashlights they'd brought down into the recesses of Hell with them. Scrunching his eyes closed against the sudden light he winced as he also turned his head away and it collided with something that was harder than him,  _ow..._

After giving himself a few minutes to allow his sight to be ready for the glaring torture of the light, he gingerly opened his eyes and managed to not be entirely blinded. Noticing that the flashlight was only about ten-centimetres from his head he tried to reach out for it with his left hand and was rewarded with a sharp pain in his elbow and shoulder which resulted in his gasping and once again squeezing his eyes shut against more pain,  _this so is not my day..._

Once he felt as though most of the pain had subsided, or at least became a manageable ache, he once again opened his eyes and slowly inched his hand closer to the flashlight; gritting his teeth at the increasing pain, until his fingers brushed against the cylindrical flashlight and he grasped it loosely in his hand. Breathing out in relief he slowly slid his arm back down towards the rest of his body where it would be less painful; or he hoped it would be less painful, before turning the flashlight around in his hand and angling it over towards where he could hear the laboured breathing,  _damn... I hate having dislocated shoulders..._

He managed to manoeuvre the flashlights beam until it fell across a familiar, blood-streaked face.

"Hotch..."

* * *

Some people cannot decide whether it is a good thing to die in pain, or to die unaware of pain. It is personal preference of course that decides this choice but it was a common occurrence in the 19th century for surgeons, or butchers as they were more akin to, to prefer a patient that screamed in agony since one could easily discern when said patient 'snuffed it'. When anaesthetic was introduced by Simpson it was used to 'knock' patients 'out' during surgeries, which was all well and good if you disliked hearing the sounds of anguished screams of agony as you sawed-off a gangrenous leg and couldn't discern as to when your patient stopped being alive. Then you'd waste time and energy on someone who was already dead and didn't really need their leg sawing-off anymore.

Morgan, personally, would much rather die whilst conscious of the pain since then he'd know that up until that last micro-second where his heart stopped beating and his mind stopped thinking he was still alive. That he was still clinging onto life and not giving up.

And how he hoped Hotch would wake up soon because he wanted him to fight and cling onto life with every ounce of his being! Hotch couldn't just pass-away peacefully, blissfully unaware of the world. No, that wouldn't be like Hotch and it would be an insult to the guy if he did.

He closed his eyes for a long moment and fruitlessly wished that he were anywhere but here, in this crypt with the dead; the dead that he had once, when he was a boy, held an irrational fear of. An irrational fear of a child that was out-grown and forgotten but rekindled when trapped in the darkness surrounding by the decomposing and skeletal remains of people who probably died of heart attacks and old age, in their homes that were secure and safe without pain and danger; the complete opposite to his life when he was younger. The only place that had been truly safe to him was Church and even that didn't stay safe for long.

Still, he prayed that he and Hotch would be okay for he did not want to die, not now, not yet, not anytime soon. He wanted to live a long life where he helped and saved people, where he stopped the bad guys and put them away; he didn't want to die yet. He really, really didn't want to die...

* * *

"Hey! He needs some help!" Alfred called out as an ambulance, that was part of a trio of ambulances, slowed down and stopped beside him, "He got hit by some ruffin's who stole a car."

"Okay sir, please step aside," One of the EMTs said as he climbed out of the ambulance and grabbed his bag. He crouched down beside the young man who looked almost dead, and said to his partner, "check for a pulse I'm going to check for any broken bones."

The other EMT immediately checked for a pulse and found one that was rapidly and jittery, "I've got a pulse. I think he's becoming tachycardic."

"Okay, he's got a couple of cracked ribs, maybe one or two broken ones, and a dislocated shoulder," the other EMT sighed and added, "go and grab the neck brace and back board would ya'."

The EMT nodded and hurried off to grab what was needed, as the EMT who had brown hair and was crouched beside the young man said to Alfred, "Did you see what happened?"

"Yeah, I did, wasn't nice at all," Alfred responded, "Both me an' Viv'an saw it! Those kid's just rammed right in't in him!"

The other EMT, carrying the neck brace and back board, crouched down on the opposite side of the young man and in complete unison the two EMTs worked together to put the neck brace on and haul the young man onto the back board; all in less than two minutes.

"I'm sorry, but since neither of you are relatives you can't come with us," the brown haired EMT explained as his partner climbed in the back and he slammed the door shut, "you understand right?"

"Yeah son! We understand, just make sure ye' take good care of 'im now!" Alfred said as the brown-haired EMT climbed into the driver's side of the ambulance, turned on the sirens, and took off down the road in the direction of the main hospital, "that young lad'll be a'right Viv'an," Alfred muttered as he and Vivian began to shuffle down the street in the direction they'd originally been heading.

* * *

Waiting isn't the easiest thing in the world for a person to do, they need patience and understanding that if they hurry it does not always mean things will go faster; time will always go on at its own steady pace regardless of personal wishes. That said though, it doesn't stop a person from wanting everyone to be over, or to be finished, or to be done quicker. Of course it doesn't, afterall, waiting is something people have to do not what they want to do.

No-one wants to sit in a waiting room whilst their brother, or mother, or father, daughter, son or friend is in a possible life-threatening surgery which they may or may not come out of alive. No-one wants to stand around outside of a hostage situation or waiting at home just praying that their child isn't the one who's been shot and is currently bleeding out. Currently dying and no-one can help them. No-one wants to be the unwilling assistant to a madman who holds up a liquor store because he needs a drink; no-one wants to be on the receiving end of a bullet; no-one wants to have to stand around waiting for the emergency services to arrive so they can save the lives of two people whom they care deeply about. No-one wants to have to wait, no-one likes to have to anticipate, no-one likes to have to have patience. But just because they don't want or like it doesn't mean they don't have to suck it up and deal with the cards they've been dealt.

If they have to wait for help, if they have to wait for news, if they have to wait for the end of the story, then they have to wait because no-one is a superhero; no-one can bend space and time. Everyone has to wait for something, so they do too.

"Emily! You have to stop this!" Rossi said firmly, "You're not going to be helping Hotch or Morgan by pacing around and trying to get in there!"

"But they could be hurt!" Emily sobbed, after having waited for twenty-five minutes and still seeing no sign of any sort of emergency services Emily's agitation and worry had finally got the better of her and she'd attempted to prise the oak door open; only to have Rossi stop her.

"Yes, they could be. But what if you try to get in there and you cause more damage? What if you step on the wrong place and the entire thing comes down?" Rossi said quietly, he didn't want to draw any more attention to Emily's behaviour than was already apparent; Reid and JJ had pointedly ignored it and as agreed had left Rossi to handle Emily since the pair of them were just as worried.

Emily gazed at Rossi with pain-filled, anguished eyes that were begging Rossi to tell her that they were alright and that the building wouldn't collapse and that the emergency services would be here in no time at all. Unfortunately, Rossi couldn't tell her all of that since he didn't know, and that tore at his heart more than he'd ever let on.

"I've called Garcia and told her to check over the transmitter to see if she can triangulate its position," Reid called out, seemingly oblivious to Emily's distress, "She says it's still transmitting which is unusual."

"Detective Quince has just informed me that he's a couple of minutes out; they had a problem with some roadworks," JJ added, as she and Reid came over to Emily and Rossi, "He also said that someone who knew us was with him."

"The unsub?" Reid asked frowning.

"No, he said it's someone who we know well but that's all he would tell me," JJ shook her head and placed a hand on Emily's arm in a show of support.

"Okay. Well, they'll be here in no time then," Rossi said almost to himself and they all settled in to wait for the next couple of minutes until the rescue mission could actually get under-way.

* * *

Gideon sat in the front of the police-cruiser silent as Quince careened around a corner and tore down the road towards Alexandria National Cemetery; he so desperately wanted to see them all again. He wondered how Reid would react to seeing him; afterall he hadn't exactly left on the best of terms had he? A letter in an abandoned cabin; definitely not the best way to say goodbye.

Behind them there were two ambulances and a fire-engine that were also following at near-enough the same speed as the cruiser. Originally there had been three ambulances but one of them had been diverted to a hit-and-run so that left them with just the two; how absurd was it that the majority of the EMTs had chosen today to go on strike over their wages! It was like life was being deliberately cruel to them all...

* * *

> _He walked along the gravel path and listened to the children playing; their shouts and screams of delight and laughs of joy in the mid-day sun. He looked to his left and saw a jungle-gym with a couple of children climbing on it, their parents were chatting amiably to one another; discussing the weather and the latest episode of House Wife's and other trivial matters._
> 
> _As he reached the bend on the gravel path he looked at himself and saw that he was clad in his usual attire; a black suit, white shirt, black tie, with one major difference; it was dirty and blood-stained. "What's happened to me?" he muttered quietly to himself, "Where am I?"_
> 
> " _You're in limbo!" A voice answered his question, "And you died, well you're not dead yet but unless you wake up you will be," a middle-aged man stood directly in front of him and raised an eyebrow._

"HOTCH!"

> " _What? I don't understand," he shook his head in confusion, he didn't understand any of this._

"HOTCH WAKE UP PLEASE MAN!"

> " _Then you'd best wake up and figure it out Sherlock!" the man said, before turning and walking away._

"AARON!"

And he opened his eyes to be blinded by a flashlight, "Ow..."

"Hotch! Oh thank God! I thought you weren't going to wake up..." Morgan cried out in elation as he directed the beam from his flashlight away from Hotch's face.

"I'm awake Derek..." Hotch whispered, he was beginning to feel all the aches and pains that his body had amassed in the last few- "How long?"

"About half-an-hour, I've heard shouting and maybe some cars above us, so I'm guessing they're about to start rescuing us," Morgan answered, already understanding Hotch's question.

"About time..." Hotch said softly as he closed his eyes and clenched his jaw against the aching in his side.

"We'll be out of here in no time at all Hotch..." Morgan said, trying to be reassuring to Hotch, but ended up sounding embarrassingly naive, "no time at all."

* * *

Internal bleedingis bleeding that occurs somewhere within the body. Internal bleeding can be serious and life-threatening condition depending on where the bleeding within the body is occurring; for example, internal bleeding in the abdomen can cause death as can haemorrhaging in the brain. One of the most common causes of internal bleeding is cancer (also termed carcinoma) of either the gastro-intestinal tract (the guts) or of the lungs, and less commonly the organs such as the pancreas, kidneys and prostate.

Of course, the main cause of internal bleeding is trauma, which may have occurred from a high speed collision in a car, or an explosion.

Hotch's eyes fluttered shut and Morgan's heart jumped into his mouth as he shouted out in absolute horror and worry, "HOTCH!"

His eyes snapped open at the shout from Morgan and Hotch dragged his gaze over to the trapped man, "wha' Mo'gan?"

Morgan could've cried at that moment, but chose to try and sound non-chalant, "Nothing Hotch, just didn't want to be on my own in here; there aren't that many people to talk to you see."

Hotch, who personally felt like he wasn't the best company at that moment managed to slur, "no'thing to be wor'ied about Mo'gan... we'll be rescued soon..." before his eyes slid shut and none of Morgan's shouts or pleas for him to open them could wake him from the comatose state he fell into.

"HOTCH!"

* * *

"Sorry Agents, there were a couple of crashes and a hit-and-run that we had to respond to," Detective Quince said as he walked across the road towards the agents, "We would've been here about half-an-hour ago otherwise."

"Half-an-hour?!" Emily exploded, all the worry and pent-up anger at her helplessness finally exploding in a terrifying glory, "HALF-AN-HOUR MAY HAVE BEEN TOO LONG!"

Quince, not really expecting the freak-out just stood there trying to look more apologetic than shocked, and Rossi took pity on him, "can you go and check with the rescue team and find out when they'll be heading down?"

Quince looked at Rossi and noticed the escape route when he saw it and nodded, before slipping away from the agents and heading over to watch the rescue team; they were already past the oak door and were moving rubble that was blocking the stairwell, and they'd only been here for about ten or fifteen minutes.

Rossi signalled for JJ to take Emily over to the SUV which he'd moved closer to the crypt, and try and calm her down. JJ nodded and placed a gentle but firm hand on Emily's arm and said, "Come on Emily, let's go and get a drink."

As JJ steered Emily towards the SUV Reid looked at Rossi and said, "Do you think they'll be alright?"

Rossi looked back at Reid and answered, "Do you think they'll be alright?" secretly, he hoped that Reid would give him a load of facts about the chances of survival and how Morgan and Hotch would be perfectly fine because something like seventy-five percent of people caught in explosions survived.

"The statistical data tells me that they won't be because they were in an enclosed area when the explosion occurred, but my heart tells me that they're alive," Reid answered sighing, and fighting back a sudden urge to throw his crutches in a fit of anger and scream and shout until someone brought his teammates, his _friends_ , back to them all; safe and well.

"Well, believe what your heart feels then," Rossi answered trying to sound happier than he felt, "Now, where's that person we're meant to know anyway?" he asked, in a bid to change the focus of his and Reid's conversation.

"Good question," Reid said as he looked around and saw a crowd of people milling around the crypt, none of them he knew apart from Quince, "Maybe he's in Quince's squad-car?"

Rossi looked at Reid, wanting to hit himself for not thinking of that, and nodded, "Let's go and find out then."

Together, the pair of them made their way past the congregations of people and over to where the police squad-cars were parked; all  _twenty-four_  of them.

"I hope he isn't in the last one," Reid sighed looking right towards the last squad-car that looked to be a million miles from him.

Rossi laughed and said, "So do I."

* * *

"MOVE OUT OF THE WAY!" one of the guys on the rescue team shouted, "WE'VE GOT TO MOVE THIS PIECE NOW!"

"WHAT ARE WE GONNA USE?" another one, who was standing just outside the oak door, shouted back.

"GET THE JAWS OF LIFE, WE WANT THE SPREADERS!" the guy shouted as he moved a smaller piece of rubble and smacked one of the guys next to him and said, "Come on. I want a cuppa' before we use those sons of bitches!"

They moved away from the blocked staircase, watching their step, and left the crypt squinting in the dying sunlight.

* * *

Morgan tried not to hyperventilate as the flashlight began to flicker and become dimmer, throwing terrifying and morphing shadows around him, that threatened to grip him and drag him away from sanity.  _'I'm not seeing demons, I'm not seeing monsters... I'm just nervous, just worried and in shock, that's all... that's all...'_ he thought to himself as he focused his eyes on Hotch's silent form, blocking out the shadowy figures that lingered on the edge of his vision.

' _God help me'_ , he thought as the flashlight flickered and died, leaving only Hotch's flashlight to be the bearer of light in the darkness that suffocated him,  _'please God help me... I don't want to die...'_

> _The sunlight filtered through the fine leaves on the oak trees as children laughed and played in the playground. He looked about himself and saw a scene he was familiar with; children at a jungle-gym with their parents chatting about the weather and other such things._
> 
> 'I'm back here again...' _he thought as he looked at himself to see the same blood-soaked suit he'd been wearing last time,_ 'and apparently I'm wearing the same attire... great...'
> 
> " _Oh you're back again! You really shouldn't be here Aaron, do you know that?" that same stranger from last time walked over to him; where he'd come from Hotch didn't have a clue and if he was honest asking wasn't on the list of his priorities._
> 
> " _But where is here?" he asked, looking about him and waving a hand at the jungle-gym._
> 
> " _I told you last time, you're in limbo; you're not on your way out yet! You're chips haven't been cashed in, you're on the threshold between life and death!" the man replied shaking his head._
> 
> " _Okay. Why am I here then?" he tried a different tactic since this man apparently believed his was in limbo,_ 'that's just not possible.'
> 
> " _Well, you're here because you're dying... which you shouldn't be! Anyway, you're dying and you've gone and done the worst possible thing!" the man exclaimed as he grabbed Hotch by the shoulders and said, "you closed your eyes..."_
> 
> _Hotch just stared at the man in surprise and was about to speak when the man said, his voice strong and forceful, "now, open your eyes!"_

And Hotch opened his eyes and he would ensure that they were to remain open long enough to see his the world beyond the darkness he was trapped within.

* * *

"How long will it be until they're free?" Quince asked the leader of the rescue team who was currently swallowing a mouthful of burning hot tea that tasted like sewage water.

"Well, it depends really," the leader said as he blinked and looked at Quince, "if the rubble blocking the staircase isn't too deep then we can get them out in the next hour or two, if it's thicker then..."

Quince nodded, understanding the leader, before saying, "well, I guess we better hope that there ain't much rubble blocking that staircase then hadn't we?"

The leader didn't answer instead choosing to continue drinking his tea, listening to the sounds of shouting from various people around him; people he didn't have to listen to because they weren't on his team. He was just finishing with his drink when he heard someone shout that they had the Jaws, which meant it was time for him to get back to work.

He left the empty polystyrene cup on the bonnet of the squad car he was leaning against and quickly weaved his way through the people running about and over to the entrance to the crypt. He grabbed his helmet off the pole that was next to the door and shoved it on his head shouting, "Right! Let's get this show on the road!"

And after he disappeared into the crypt the sound of the hydraulic machinery could be heard which signalled salvation to the two people who were trapped below.

* * *

"Okay, what have we got?" the A&E doctor asked the EMTs who were rolling a gurney through the doors and towards him.

"Hit and run, guy's tachycardic and he's got dislocated shoulder, broken leg, broken ribs and possible internal bleeding," the dark-haired EMT rolled off the list of injuries  _John Doe_  had sustained.

"Okay. Let's get him into the OR stat!" the doctor called out as he took over pushing the gurney towards the Operating Room, along with two nurses.

They disappeared into the OR where the doctor checked the vitals and cut off the coat  _John Doe_ was wearing and passing it to one of the nurses to search for any ID.

The nurse left the OR and dug through the pockets, coming up empty in regards to ID but finding something that gave her cause for alarm.

"Someone call security!" She shouted as she re-entered the OR, "Doctor, he was carrying a gun and this," she held up a small black box which had a single flashing light on it.

Even a layman could figure out what it was and before the doctor could speak the nurse said, "I've already called for security."

"Call the cops too," the doctor nodded at her as he tried to stem the bleeding that was coming from the incision he'd made in  _John Doe's_  shoulder, "get me some saline! NOW"

* * *

Morgan was silent as he listened to the sounds of shifting rubble which seemed to be coming from the staircase,  _'oh God... they're finally here... we're gonna be alright...'_  he shifted slightly in his position and had to stifle a cry of agony as his shoulder came into contact with a piece of rubble next to him.

Though he managed not to cry out Hotch still picked up on Morgan's pain and dredged up enough energy to manage to slur, "you 'kay Mo'gan?" Even though Hotch was almost completely out of it he couldn't ignore the fact that one of his team was injured; even if it was a paper cut or a sprained ankle, he couldn't just ignore it. That was the sign of a bad team leader and he want to be considered a bad team leader; it would damage his team's reputation if that happened.

Not trusting himself to answer for a few moments Morgan breathed deeply before managing to bite out, "fine. Hotch."

Hotch, knowing that Morgan was lying, couldn't find any more energy to continue speaking so he just managed to whisper, "'kay.." before he fell silent.

Morgan was silent as he continued to listen to the sounds above him; shouting, machinery and running. He found that his eyes were starting to drift shut, almost as if all the noise was some sort of lullaby, and so he forced himself to start counting; which was something he'd stopped doing when he was seven,  _'one... two...'_

* * *

"Three and heave!" the sound of grunting and cursing could be heard echoing out of the crypt as the rescue team managed to haul the last large piece of rubble blocking the staircase out of their way. They hadn't had it easy up till then by any means; the Jaws of Life had promptly died a death when they'd reached the last large piece of concrete ceiling blocking the staircase which meant that they'd had to haul it aside by hand.

If it hadn't been for the need to get the rescue team and EMTs down there first, Quince was pretty darn certain that the two female Agents would've been down there in a heartbeat. He frowned and looked around; where were the other two?

* * *

Reid and Rossi were still ambling around the squad-cars, searching for whomever it was who knew them, when they heard the sound of the Jaws. Reid immediately identified the sound of them and said to Rossi, "They're using hydraulic machinery to get to Hotch and Morgan!"

Rossi resisted the urge to roll his eyes and said, "Yeah, I figured that. Who's in that squad-car there?" he pointed over at one of the few squad-cars they hadn't looked in yet which was parked in the shadow of one of the trees, a streetlight was trying to cast its beam over the car but the leaves of the tree prevented it from reaching the black-and-white.

They carefully made their way over to the squad-car and when Reid saw who was sitting in the passenger seat he nearly collapsed from shock, "Gideon..."


	7. Chapter 7

When the first beam of artificial light bled into the lower-level of the crypt, Morgan was ready to cry in relief. It had been nearly three hours since he and Hotch had been trapped in the blast; almost thirty hours since they'd received that letter from the Unsub, and he was certain he was now able to see the light at the end of the tunnel, if one could pardon the pun.

"Hotch..." he called out, his throat dry and voice rough, irritated by the dust in the air, "Hotch... we're safe... we're safe..." his voice grew weaker as his pulse began to stutter and falter in its journey; his blood flow slowing and becoming jittery as the internal bleeding in his abdomen finally took its toll on his body. The last thing he heard was Hotch's soft call to him and the sound of shouting from the rescue team that were climbing down into the lower-level of the crypt; which Morgan believed was about to become his tomb.

* * *

"Gideon..." Reid breathed softly, his lungs constricting painfully and his heart beating rapidly,  _'Gideon... it can't be... no...'_

"Spencer," Gideon said softly as he climbed out of the black-and-white, "It's good to see you."

Rossi looked at Gideon then at Reid who looked for all intents and purposes like a lost child whose world had just turned upside,  _'no, not turned upside, had just been completely destroyed!'_

"You... you l-left... you..." Reid was at a complete loss for words and so continued to stare at Gideon who slowly walked over to him, wary and hesitant; as though he was afraid Reid might lash out at him with his crutches. If Reid was honest with himself, he truly felt like smacking Gideon a couple of times over the head with his crutches, but Reid didn't want to be honest with himself, he wanted to continue to stare at Gideon in shock and disbelief.

"I'm sorry Spencer, I'm so sorry," Gideon said softly as he stopped directly in front of Reid and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, "I never meant to hurt you, any of you."

Reid swallowed and managed to choke out, "but you did," before he shrugged off Gideon's hand and turned around. He coughed and said, in a voice that said he didn't want to talk about this, "I think they've got Hotch and Morgan out now."

Then he was off, back the way he'd came, towards his friends, towards his teammates leaving Rossi and Gideon to catch-up. Rossi watched Reid disappeared from view before looking at Gideon and saying, "I think we'd best go check on them don't you?" his tone of voice was icy and distanced. He didn't like the fact that Reid had looked so upset and had ended up shutting himself away from everyone, just like he always did when faced with problems.

Gideon, taking note of Rossi's tone and how hostile he was being, nodded and said, "Lead the way."

When they reached the crypt they saw two backboards, each one had a body on them; one with a black and dirtied suit on, the other with a short sleeved shirt and black pants. They were both loaded into a separate ambulance and Rossi and Gideon just managed to see Prentiss climb into the back of the ambulance with Hotch in and JJ in the one with Morgan; which meant that Reid was staying behind.

The sound of sirens reached their ears as they watched the ambulances take off with police escorts along the road and off towards the hospital. Reid looked over at them, or more so at Rossi and said, "We're going to need to follow them."

Rossi nodded, immediately understanding what Reid meant and said, "I'll go get the SUV. You wait here Reid."

Reid nodded and watched as Rossi made his way through the police officers and firemen over towards the SUV. He didn't look at Gideon but Gideon focused his attention entirely on Reid; observing how he held himself, how he stubbornly refused to look at Gideon, how he didn't look around himself in any confusion or interest. It was like Reid was shutting himself off; some sort of protection mechanism he'd always had but had rarely used. And now he was using it around him, Gideon.

Quince was walking past Reid talking on his cellphone when he said, "what! You think he's the one we're after? Where is he? The hospital! Alright. I'm on my way," he snapped his cellphone shut and looked at Reid.

Reid tilted his head slightly and looked right back at Quince, "what?"

"I think I know where your unsub is," Quince answered simply as Rossi pulled up next to the kerb and rolled down a window, "He's at the same hospital your people are heading to right now."

Without a moment's hesitation, Reid hobbled over to the SUV, opened the door to the back and threw his crutches in and then hauled himself in all the while he was saying, "Get in. Rossi we need to get to the hospital, now."

Quince, not needing to be told twice dived in the front and Gideon quickly climbed in the back next to Reid. Once they were all in Rossi gunned the engine and was off down the road; the sirens on the SUV blazing as Quince requested that any and all patrol cars near to the hospital be diverted there immediately.

* * *

Prentiss sat out of the way as the EMT worked furiously to stem the external bleeding and stop Hotch from dying there and then. She'd heard him when he'd left the crypt, she'd heard the soft mumbling that had filtered through the oxygen mask he was wearing, "make sure Morgan's okay..." was what he'd said. Even when he was barely conscious, even when he could barely breathe, he was still worried about his team.

She watched at the EMT cursed quietly and looked at her, he said to her, "I need your help miss."

It took her all of a second to nod and help the EMT to save the life of her team leader, to save the life of SSA Aaron Hotchner.

* * *

In the other ambulance that was speeding along the streets of Washington D.C JJ was also silently watching as the EMT worked furiously on Morgan to try and keep his vitals stable.

"Damn it... always internal bleeding..." the EMT cursed quietly as JJ blinked away the tears in her eyes, "Oh, I'm sorry miss. I forgot you were here."

JJ shook her head at the EMT and said, "It's alright... really."

"He just needs to hold on until he can get to the OR and then they can fix his innards'," the EMT smiled tightly before the smile dropped away as Morgan's vitals crashed and the EMT struggled vainly to try and get them stable again.

* * *

Life. What a funny word. It had such a common and well-known meaning. It can be singular, plural and used in either the past, present or future tense. It can have more than one meaning, can be considered ambiguous and can be coined for having a slang meaning that isn't in the Oxford dictionary.

If one is alive then one has a heart beat; that is the definition of being alive for a human and also for most other creatures. Bacteria however, I sincerely doubt, has a heart so therefore, how is it classified as being alive?

That is the problem with the concept of life; it has different rules for different creatures, for different organisms. A person who is in the ICU after being in a head-on collision and is brain-dead is still considered alive because their heart beats beneath their breast still. But are they really alive? Their brain has no function, yet their heart beats; does that really mean they are alive and must continue in to exist in such a state? Is it not cruel to them to allow their bodies to continue to live when they cannot use it, when they no longer have a consciousness, a mind with which to control their own bodies?

Life is considered to be a characteristic that distinguishes between objects that have a self-sustaining biological process, or processes, from objects that do not; such as machines or inanimate objects. This idea is contradictory to this modern-day-and-age since there are now machines that can process and compute massive amounts of data, can perform various tasks considered to be tasks carried out by higher mammals; like humans, yet does that mean they are alive? Or does it mean that it's a smart piece of buckets and bolts that can do the work of mankind for it? Is a machine a slave that has no feelings because it 'thinks' only in terms of binary code and logistics?

For the most part, people are considered alive if 1) their heart beats and 2) if their brains function. If one of these pieces of criteria isn't correct then they are considered dead, right? If their heart no longer beats then their brain can no longer function, due to lack of oxygen, so then a person is dead. But, if a person is brain-dead and their heart still beats they can still be classed as 'alive'. Where is the logic in that?

* * *

"He's crashed! We need to get to the hospital NOW!"

* * *

"Hurry up! I don't think I can keep him going much longer Matt!"

* * *

"He's not gonna' make it!"

* * *

 

"I think I might have a pulse... oh shit!"

* * *

Beep_

* * *

Beep_Beep_Beep_Beep_

* * *

In biology, life is the condition that distinguishes active organisms from inorganic matter, including the ability to grow as well as functional activity and decomposition after death. An amazing array of living organisms can be found throughout the biosphere of the Earth. These organisms have common properties such as; they are all carbon, and water, based cellular forms with complex organisations and genetic information that can be 'passed on' from one generation to the next.

Living organisms have a metabolism, homeostatic functions, posses the capacity to grow, respond to stimuli, reproduce, and, via natural selection, can adapt to their environments more and more with each successive generation. The more complex the living organism, the more often it can communicate using various means; such as speech in regards to humans.

In philosophy and religion the ideals of life and its nature vary. Both offer different interpretations as to how life relates to the existence of things and the idea of consciousness and both mention several related issues such as the purpose of life and life-forms, the opinion on life; when does life first begin and when does it end?

The main question that one should ask is, can someone who is no longer alive come back to life?

* * *

"Please Hotch don't die... please..."

* * *

"Morgan... Derek... you've got to hang on... please Derek..."

* * *

"Hurry up Rossi! Please, I have a bad feeling about all of this!"

* * *

"Okay, he's out of surgery and is in recovery. If you could stand guard outside his room until the police arrive. He should be unconscious for the next hour or so."

"Alright doctor."

**-CoaK-CM-CoaK-CM-CoaK-**

"Goddamn it! MOVE OUT OF THE WAY!"

"Matt?"

"IDIOTS ARGUIN' ABOUT A FENDER BENDER IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GODDAMN ROAD! MOVE!"

"Matt just drive through 'em! He ain't gonna' last much longer!"

"Alright! OUTTA THE WAY!"

* * *

"... I've got a pulse... he's stabilising..."

"How far to the hospital?"

"We're just pulling in now miss."

"Oh thank God..."

* * *

Beep_Beep_Beep_Beep_Beep_Beep_Beep_Beep_Beep_Beep_Beep_Beep_Beep_

"Get a gurney!"

* * *

"I've not got a pulse! Shit!"

"What! No, no there's got to be a pulse!"

"Miss, please, I'm trying to work!"

"But..."

"We're just outside!"

"'Kay!"

* * *

The whole idea of Easter focuses around the resurrection of Jesus Christ, around the idea that after forty days and forty nights the Son of God arose from the dead and was with his disciples.

The story of the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is near-enough two thousand years old. The story of the Resurrection of SSA Derek Morgan began when his heart stopped beating and he was hastily rolled into the OR next to his team leader and underwent a four hour surgery to repair the damage caused to him by the collapsed ceiling in the crypt.


	8. Chapter 8

" _He's got the whole wide world in his hands, he's got the whole wide world in his hands..."_

_The sound of childish laughter could be heard as the hymn was sung with happiness and joy on Easter Sunday. It was something of a beautiful sound to hear as parents and the priest in the church listened with smiles on their faces, they adored their children and how they were singing for God on such a special day._

_Morgan looked about himself and frowned, he remembered this place, it was from his past; a memory. One of the few he happened to like. He was standing in the middle of the aisle, the sunlight filtering through the windows around him and glittering on the marble floor. He remembered how he and his sisters had sang this song every year with the children's choir at the church, their parents in the audience; he even remembered all the hand signals they used when singing._

" _He's got the little bitty baby in his hands, he's got the little bitty baby in his hands..."_

_Morgan smiled and searched the faces of the children at the front of the church, looking for one he recognised. There!_

" _He's got the little bitty baby in his hands, he's got the whole world in his hands..."_

_That was him when he was only seven, man was he small. He never realised just how small he'd been compared to the other kids he knew were around seven in the choir, 'good thing I've grown a bit huh?' he thought as he continued to listen to the singing._

" _He's got you and me brother in his hands he's got you and me sister in his hands_ _,_ _He's got you and me brother in his hands he's got the whole world in his hands_ _,_ _He's got the whole world in his hands..."_ _  
It was lovely to hear, even though none of them had the voices of the choir boys who were older by just a few years, they still sounded just as angelic as the kindest and softest of streams and just as radiant as the first rays of the sun at dawn.  
_ _"He's got everybody here in his hands he's got everybody here in his hands_ _,_ _He's got everybody here in his hands he's got the whole world in his hands_ _,_ _He's got the whole world in his hands..., He's got the whole world in his hands..."_

_And if he was honest with himself, he needed to wake up now because that beeping was just destroying the mood and he really couldn't be bothered trying to ignore it any longer. But, he really didn't want to wake up... not just yet._

* * *

They took it in turns to sit in the private room which Hotch and Morgan occupied, three hours for Emily then three for JJ, Rossi and then Reid. Gideon was the only one who spent the night, mostly because he didn't have to drive back to Quantico to try and placate Garcia every day.

It had been almost two days since they'd pulled Hotch and Morgan from the crypt and neither of them had woken up for more than a few seconds at a time. The doctors had assured them that it was fine and that they were only exhausted. Of course, the fact that none of them really had any time for doctors, of the medical profession, meant that they hadn't taken the assurances for anything other than platitudes and avoidance techniques.

Currently it was Emily's turn to sit and watch over the slumbering duo, and so she sat on a less-than comfortable chair trying to read the magazine she'd found in the waiting room instead of staring at Hotch and Morgan every few seconds; she was just about managing a minute inbetween her gaping stares.

Every so often Hotch's breathing would hitch slightly and would cause Emily to jolt out of the chair and over to the bed only for it to resume its rhythmic beat again, leaving Emily to sit back in the chair and try to not look as lost and upset as she really was.

Morgan's breathing was relatively level and normally, with only the occasional stutter or hitch; but that normally happened during Gideon's or Reid's shift, and they both understood that it was just Morgan's body still repairing and also Morgan's dreams having a physical affect on his body. They doubted it was because he was in pain, but just because they doubted it didn't always mean that it was so.

Once again Hotch's breathing hitched and Emily was up, out of her seat and next to his bed in less than a heartbeat. She searched the healing face of her team leader, frantically searching for any sign of him gaining consciousness; but there were none. She sighed and closed her eyes tiredly, she couldn't keep doing this, and was turning away when a hand weakly grasped her wrist.

Slowly she turned around and looked directly into the eyes of her team leader who was smiling tiredly. Her face broke out into a large smile as she said, "Welcome back."

Hotch's smile became wider and he managed to wheeze out, "I didn't... go anywhere..."

* * *

Though it had been almost two-and-a-half days since Hotch had woken up to see Emily's face, the same could not be said for Morgan who was still sleeping off the entire incident. His body had had a larger toll taken upon it than Hotch's, though Hotch was the one who suffered broken ribs, internal bleeding and external bleeding, as well as the mother of all concussions, Morgan had remained conscious for the entire two or so hours that they'd been trapped and had expended a lot of energy during the event. Which meant that it was only logical for Morgan to be making like the dead with his sleeping, but that still did little to placate his friends and teammates.

After Hotch had woken the doctors had wanted to move him to another room where they could monitor him better but he had flat-out refused; he wasn't going anywhere until his friend was awake and flirting with the nurses. The doctors, after spending almost an hour arguing with him, which amazed them since they had doubted that Hotch could remain awake and coherent for that long, had eventually relented and allowed him to remain in the same room as Morgan.

It was nearly time for Reid's shift to end and Gideon's to begin, but tonight Reid had every intention of saying there till morning; he couldn't really go home since the landlord had only just decided to fumigate the apartments to get rid of the cockroaches. He had resisted the urge to call the guy every name he knew when he'd found the note on his door last night, as it was he'd managed to not beat the door to his own apartment down with the crutches he still had to use; that was the problem with being in a hospital every day, you couldn't ditch the crutches after a week because the voodoo practitioners would catch you and stab you with a few choice needles designed to create a whole new world of pain.

He moved slightly, trying to find some comfort in the torture-chairs as he'd so lovingly called them, but after about ten-minutes of shifting about he gave up; these torture-chairs were designed with torture and pain in mind so the hospitals would always have a constant supply of patients with health insurance. Looking out of the window he saw that opposite the west side of the hospital was a sky scraper that had probably seen better days, the paint on the concrete walls was peeling and the windows were dirty and grimy from what look like years-worth of lack of care. He guessed that the building was abandoned and no-one could be bothered knocking it down or using it for something productive; like office-space instead of wasting more land on futuristic-buildings that were left only half-complete.

As he continued to look out of the window he realised belatedly that the sun hadn't actually set yet, but it was so low down that the buildings blocked its rays. Sighing he closed his eyes and thought about anything other than such a thing as blocked sunlight; what his mind decided to think about though made him regret turning his attention away from the sunlight.

He'd been avoiding Gideon for the last two days, not speaking to him and whenever he was left alone with him he'd always make a hurried excuse to get away before they had 'the talk'. The talk consisted of Gideon apologising profusely for leaving and only letting a letter, a letter of all things, tell them goodbye, then Reid would look sad and lost and would make Gideon feel guilty, then he'd forgive Gideon, they'd hug and then be getting along again like it was old times; then Gideon would leave again and Reid would feel even more lost and let-down than last time. No, he wasn't going to go through all of that again. It was almost too much to bare last time, he was certain that this time around it might kill him.

* * *

 

" _A ring a ring a rosies, a pocket full of poises, a tissue, a tissue we all fall down!" the girls giggled and laughed as the boy sat in the middle of the ring they'd made with their hands and glared at each of them in turn._

" _Shut up! Why can't you play power rangers instead?" he grumbled as he stood up and wiped the dirt off his denim jeans._

" _Ew! Power rangers is stupid! This is much more fun!" the oldest of the girls pulled a face before smiling and saying, "do you want to come to our tea party?"_

" _No!" the boy exclaimed as he glared at them and they laughed at his response. At nine years old he wasn't exactly intimidating to many, heavens even the five year olds in the children's choir were taller than him!_

_Morgan leaned against the jungle gym, which the church had built in its grounds for the children in the neighbourhood, and watched as the boy stomped off in anger and the girls continued to giggle and laugh. He remembered how he'd felt sitting in the middle of that ring and listening to them chant that, insanely-annoying, rhyme over-and-over for what felt like a million times._

_He smiled as the sun beat down upon the Earth in the middle of summer and he felt the warmth of the rays upon his skin. This was one of the other memories he'd enjoyed thinking back to whenever he was sad or angry about a case gone wrong. It was ironic because though he was angry at the girls, he was only angry because he'd felt embarrassed and didn't want to play 'tea party' in the middle of the church yard; if he was honest with himself, he'd always loved playing games with his sisters because he loved them so much. They were his family after all._

_Beep_Beep_Beep_Beep-_

_There it was again, that annoyingly repetitive beeping that kept on distracting him. He frowned and wondered if it was time for him to wake up, he probably should've woken when he'd first heard the beeping but he'd been too happy and lost in his memories; he didn't want to leave them and go back to the real world. The real world was where things went wrong and people died, where he and people he cared about were hurt._

_But he knew that he couldn't stay here in his dream-world any longer; it was time to wake up._

* * *

"Just shut up Gideon!" Reid growled, he didn't want to hear this, he couldn't hear this, "please..."

Gideon stopped short and looked at Reid as he tried to huddle himself away from him and the rest of the world, "Spence-"

"Please... just don't... I can't take it..." Reid mumbled as he tried to not cry, he blinked and looked at Morgan's bed; Hotch had been given a sedative about an hour ago to help him sleep better. There was no outward sign that Morgan was awake; his breathing was still rhythmic, his face was still slack and relaxed, his eyes weren't flickering back and forth beneath the lids during sleep. Reid almost smiled, that was always Morgan's tell; it was also most people's tells in fact, they stopped moving their eyes back and forth in a constant repetitive motion and that was how you could tell they were awake.

He coughed softly and said, "Hey Morgan."

"Hey kid..." Morgan whispered, his throat dry, "How about some water?"

Gideon, before Reid could do anything, filled a glass with some water from the jug on the bedside cabinet and placed a straw in it. He then held it to Morgan's lips so the guy could water his throat.

"Thanks," Morgan sighed. The cool liquid had soothed his throat and he felt a lot better for it, "Gideon."

Gideon looked at Morgan shocked, Morgan's eyes weren't even open, "How did you know?"

Morgan laughed gently, and smirked, "Boy genius broke his ankle so he couldn't have leaned over to help me drink, and he also tends to forget to put a straw in the glasses."

Reid glared at Morgan, who finally opened his eyes, and said, "It was one time! One time!"

"And I'm never going to let you forget it kid," Morgan grinned and looked past Reid, "Hotch?"

"He's alright. Just sleeping, the nurse gave him a sedative so he's out of it," Reid answered smiling slightly, "we were more worried about you actually. You wouldn't wake up on command; even Hotch tried to order you awake."

Morgan smiled sadly, "Sorry for scaring you all. I was really tired."

"It's alright. You're already forgiven by the team; it's just Garcia you've got to worry about," Reid grinned widely when Morgan's face blanched and laughed.

"Kill me now, it'll save her doing it," Morgan groaned and Gideon smiled sadly, he did miss his team; with all their childishness and brilliance, they were one of the best teams because they still hadn't lost all their innocence... yet.

"Anyway," Morgan said, in an effort to change the focus of the conversation, "Why are you two arguing? And Reid, don't you sneak out of here using some half-brained excuse."

"How about a full-brained one?" Reid ventured as he looked away from Morgan and back out the window.

"Reid," Morgan growled as deeply as he dared, for fear of setting off a bout of coughing because his ribs felt awfully tender, "Talk kid."

Gideon wisely chose that moment to intervene, "It's just a misunderstanding Derek. We'll sort it out later, you need to be checked over by a doctor," and before Morgan could even say anything to the contrary Gideon was at the door and calling out, "I need a doctor in here!"

And then the voodoo practitioners were piling into the room and Morgan was left to their devilishly evil tests and needles, as Reid and Gideon slipped out and off to the waiting room; knowing that they weren't to be in the room whilst the doctors were checking Morgan to see if he was as alright as they thought he was. He was being his normal, forceful I-want-to-know-the-answer-to-this-problem-now self afterall.

* * *

Emily and JJ, though they much preferred being at the hospital with Hotch and Morgan, resigned themselves to going to the police station where the Unsub was being held; he had regained consciousness about three hours after he'd had his operation and was recuperating quite well.

Though he still couldn't move around without the aid of a wheelchair that hadn't stopped the local police from putting him in lock-up; he was a crazy bomber after all. JJ and Emily looked at each and nodded at each other, it had already been decided as to who would go in to speak to the Unsub, who had been moved to one of the interview rooms in the station; Emily would interview him and JJ would be in the observation room watching the entire thing. JJ would also be joined by the chief of Police as well as Gideon who hadn't even slept after his night shift.

Reid would remain at the hospital to keep an eye on Hotch and Morgan; or technically, to listen to Morgan's complaints about evil doctors who use medicine as an excuse to torture injured patients. Gideon and Hotch had briefly discussed the interview and over who should lead it and had decided to let Emily do so; they both had a hunch that Emily would get through to him better than anyone else.

Their hunch was based on information Garcia had scrounged up about the Unsub and his mother, who looked suspiciously like Emily, they reasoned that he would listen to 'his mother' more than anyone else and, just as a child wouldn't lie to his mother, they hoped he would answer all her questions and not lie. They hoped.

JJ was inside the observation room next to Gideon and said softly, "should I be in there with her?"

Gideon looked at JJ and replied gently, "No. Emily can handle this."

"I know she can handle it, I'm just worried that she won't be able to handle him," JJ sighed, "I'm just worried she'll get hurt too," she closed her eyes tiredly and Gideon finally looked at her.

He placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder and said, "She'll be fine, and so will Hotch and Morgan; they're strong, they'll pull through."

JJ looked Gideon directly in the eye and said, "I thought you were strong too," before shrugging off his hand and focusing her attention on the interview which was about to begin. Gideon stood next to her, feeling like he was about to shatter,  _'they have every right to be angry at me...'_  he reasoned, even as he fought the urge to turn and run away from it all,  _'I left without saying goodbye... without telling them what and where I was going... for all they knew, I could've topped myself... I deserve their anger...'_  He took a deep breath and focused on the interview, moving away from JJ slightly, because he just couldn't handle being that close to someone who he'd hurt.

* * *

Emily opened the door to the interview room slowly, hesitating slightly as she crossed the threshold, could she do this? Did she want to do this? Did she want to sit in front of the man, no not man, monster who had almost killed her friends?

The answer was a resounding "yes"; she wanted to sit in front of him and look him right in the eyes; she wanted to know why he did what he did; she wanted to know why he hurt them; why he nearly killed them; why he tried to kidnap Reid; why he detonated the bomb that buried Hotch and Morgan and nearly killed them... she  _wanted_  to know!

She slowly closed the door, not even giving the Unsub a glance as she turned her body around to close the door with her left hand, not her right, her left; she used her left hand because she wanted the Unsub to realise that she would turn her back on him and didn't care for his reaction. She wanted him to realise how very angry, how  _disappointed_  she was with him.

He was watching her as she made her way across the small room and over to the table. He watched her as she silently pulled out the chair and sat down on it. He watched as she opened the file she held and spread out several reports and photographs, and photocopies of the letters and messages he had sent them. And she didn't say a word and didn't look at him; in fact, she didn't acknowledge him in any way whatsoever.

* * *

He sat in the room looking at the mirror that he knew was a one-way, he could see his reflection but he couldn't see through it, whilst those on the other side could see him and observe him the same way one would observe an ant in an ant-farm.

He resisted the urge to twiddle his thumbs, since he would have found it rather difficult due to the rather unimpressive cast he had on his wrist and the splint that was around his thumb, binding it to his hand to help heal it. He instead settled for counting the number of ceiling tiles on the ceiling of the interview room, and once he'd done that almost twelve times in a row, he moved on to counting the floor tiles which was just as boring but passed the time; albeit incredibly slowly.

As he counted the floor tiles for the fourteenth time the door to the interview room opened and a ghost walked in, a ghost that didn't look at him, that didn't speak to him, that didn't even care about him,  _'but mammy always cared about me...'_  he thought quietly to himself then he paused,  _'why did I just think that? I never cared for my whore of a mother...'_  he frowned when he felt himself warming up suddenly. He was boiling, he was burning, he was being burnt alive and he was disappearing... he was going... going... going...

* * *

"Mammy?"

Emily started as the Unsub looked at her with a questioning gaze, he seemed like a different person.

"Mammy?" he asked again, leaning in as much as he could with those bandages binding his ribs, he cocked his head to the side and smiled at Emily with a child-like smile.

Emily's first instinct was to answer 'no' but she knew that this was an entirely different personality to the one who had wrote them letters and taunted them... and nearly killed them. The Unsub had a split personality... ' _oh, thank God Reid isn't doing this interview...'_  she thought as the Unsub continued to smile at her. She knew that Reid wasn't exactly fond of Unsub's with multiple personalities, heaven knows neither would she if she'd gone through what he did at the hands of Tibias Hankel, and was suddenly glad that she and Reid had argued over who would babysit Morgan and Hotch of an evening; originally she'd wanted to do that shift but Reid had argued with her that she had more of a life than him and that JJ shouldn't be on her own for that long; he'd said that JJ was just as vulnerable now as she was and needed someone who'd understand how she felt. Whatever that meant...

* * *

Rossi entered the observation room and nodded at JJ and at Gideon also, as he moved to stand on the other side of JJ. He looked into the interview room and commented, "Emily's on her own."

JJ nodded but didn't speak as she tried to focus on the Unsub and his behaviour with Emily; it had changed, what had once been a cool and collected man who was merely watching a woman enter his area transformed into an almost child-like man who smiled goofily at Emily and looked to almost be trying to apologise to Emily for something...  _'oh... he's split... oh dear...'_

Gideon looked at Rossi and said, "She can handle it," his tone and stance didn't show his annoyance or anger at being challenged, even if it was by David, but Rossi knew he was angry; it was a profiler's gift to know such a thing.

"I know she can, I'm just curious as to why you've sent her in on her own,  _without_  back-up," Rossi conceded but he raised an eyebrow and gave Gideon a pointed look that just said if-she's-hurt-it'll-be-on-your-head. And Gideon fully understood Rossi's concern, but that didn't do much to temper his annoyance.

He was about to explain when JJ cut in and said, "He's got different personalities, he's just switched."

* * *

He was quiet as Mammy looked at him with a curious gaze; he wasn't used to her looking at him like she didn't know him. He took in everything about her; her eyes, the way they were the same shade he remembered and so full of emotion and vitality; her hair, that was dark and sleek; her skin tone, that was so pale and so delicate looking that he feared trying to reach out and touch her. He didn't want her to break this time...

When she spoke he listened intently, taking in the timbre and the tone of her voice, but not really comprehending what she was saying to him. She was talking about something and picked up a piece of paper which she held out for him to see, but he didn't look at it, he looked at her. He watched as she tilted her head, an almost unnoticeable action but he noticed it, he noticed everything when he had to; and he had to now, he had to remember every detail that he could about his Mammy. He didn't want to forget a single thing about her every again.

* * *

Reid leaned back in the chair next to Morgan and Hotch's bed as he flicked through the pages of the magazine that someone had left on the chair,  _'probably JJ or Emily'_  he thought as he stopped at a page that said something about _**real life experiences! How a woman can look ten years younger!** _ _'yep, definitely JJ or Emily'_ he sighed and chucked the magazine on the beside cabinet near to him.

Hotch and Morgan were either resting, or avoiding the whole idea of talking, and so Reid was basically left to his own devices; since his stupid landlord had decided to get the apartments fumigated it left Reid with nowhere to really go so he had spent the night in the most uncomfortable chair on the planet. In all of the life-threatening situations he'd been in, in all of the most uncomfortable and painful places he'd landed; like on glass, concrete, solid earth, wood... he couldn't even begin to compare the pain in his back from spending one measly night in that confounded chair! It could be used as an effective torture weapon for all the pain and discomfort it bloody caused.

He had briefly debated on whether or not to ask one of the nurses if he could just have a snooze on the spare bed in the room, that was nearest to the window and furthest from the door, but he didn't feel entirely comfortable with asking; sure, he probably would've been allowed because it seemed that most of the nurses seemed to really have the hots for him, if the number of phone-numbers written on napkins told him anything, but it wasn't that. It was admitting to himself and the rest of the world, that he was afraid to leave his friends alone for such a long amount of time, because he was fairly certain that he would sleep for a week if he was allowed to snooze on the spare bed. He was afraid that, whilst he was sleeping instead of watching over them, they would be kidnapped by the Unsub, even though he knew that he was in custody and couldn't hurt them anymore, or worse... that they would die, even though he knew that was entirely illogical he just couldn't help thinking it. He couldn't help worrying.

He couldn't help being him, and he wanted to protect his friends; he'd already figured out a way to use the crutches he still had as a set of effective tripping tools, and head-whacking sticks, his IQ seemed to be coming in handy again...

* * *

Emily observed the Unsub for a long, long moment as she contemplated how to start the interrogation without having it end with him going... more postal? The fact that the Unsub was still referring to her as 'mammy' wasn't lost on her and unfortunately it told her that she wanted a different personality; the one that was responsible. But she couldn't exactly click her fingers and that personality would magically appear, so she would have to work with what she had; which was one of the personas and said persona had the emotional maturity of a four-year-old! 'Great... just great...' she thought to herself as she finally decided to go for the I-just-want-to-know-everything-I-can-about-this-you-before-you-go-and-change-personalitities-again approach; which basically consisted of her asking questions and playing the role of 'mammy' in the whole thing.

* * *

Gideon was silent in the observation room as he did what you're supposed to do in an observation room; he observed. But he didn't just observe the Unsub, he observed Emily and wondered how she had become a more capable and confident profiler; granted he'd left not long after she'd arrived but he'd realised that she was less-than confident in her own abilities. 'Now look at her' he suppressed the urge to smile, 'she's realised that she's got every right to be on the team as the rest of them...' he sighed, 'damn... I left for a reason didn't I? And now I'm back again... why? Why am I here?'

JJ looked at Gideon and took note of the fact that he looked to have aged by a couple of decades in the space of a few minutes, 'why is he here?' she wondered as she avoided his gaze and focused on Emily as she smiled, actually smiled, at the Unsub.

"What's she doing?" JJ wondered aloud and as if on cue both Gideon and Rossi began to answer.

"She's gaining the Unsub's trust," Gideon muttered, not really realising that JJ was actually expecting Rossi to answer.

"She's playing this carefully, she's going to gain the trust of this persona and then try the next one," Rossi answered slowly as he and Gideon looked at each other and silently acknowledged that both of their responses were correct, but they also acknowledged the fact that Gideon wasn't on the team anymore and shouldn't even be there.

"Oh," JJ said as she turned her attention back to the interview, intensely aware of the tension and testosterone in the air in the observation room. She watched in silence as Emily continued to talk to the Unsub, listening to the conversation on the intercom; taking in the fact that the Unsub really did believe Emily to be his 'mammy'. And then she had a sudden realisation and she turned to Gideon and Rossi. They both looked from each other to her and both suddenly realised that one, or both, of them had done something that was about to earn them one heck of a telling off!

Slowly JJ looked from Rossi to Gideon and said, "Which one of you did this?"

Rossi frowned in confusion and looked at JJ who then knew that Rossi was innocent and that it was-

"I did," Gideon said softly, "Garcia pulled the file on the Unsub and found a photograph in an old newspaper of the Unsub's mother; his mother looked like Emily," he looked down and away from JJ's angered glare.

"What happens if he switches to a different, less friendly persona Gideon?" JJ glared directly at him and waited for an answer, "Well?"

"I-" he began but Rossi's shout cut him off.

* * *

"Emily!" Rossi shouted; he'd been the only one to have been watching the interview as JJ was grilling Gideon and so was the one who saw the Unsub's switch and then Emily getting attacked. He launched himself towards the door to the observation room and dove through it, closely followed by Gideon and JJ. He grabbed the handle for the door to the interrogation room and twisted it, opened the door and then he partially tackled the Unsub, who was doing a good job of strangling Emily with only one semi-working hand.

Gideon helped Rossi to restrain the Unsub as several uniformed officers came in and helped to get the Unsub back in the chair and they added a couple sets of restraints for good measure. Once the Unsub was fully restrained, and Emily was breathing properly, Gideon and Rossi looked to the officers and nodded; signalling that they could remove the Unsub completely. The officers immediately began to undo the restraints but Rossi said, "Take him as he is," and the officers continued to remove the Unsub from the room without undoing all the restraints.

Rossi briefly entertained the notion of telling them to take him and the chair he was sitting to, but he then realised that said chair had wheels, 'good thing I didn't tell them to take it with him... I'd looked like a moron in front of Jason,' he suppressed the urge to smile as he turned his attention to Emily and said softly to her, "you okay?" In response Emily gave him a look that just said do-you-really-want-me-to-answer-that-truthfully and Rossi amended his question, "are you feeling better than you were a few seconds ago?" to which Emily nodded silently.

JJ sat down next to Emily and placed an arm around her shoulders as she quietly asked, "you sure?"

Emily smiled slightly and responded, her voice hoarse, "yeah... just a bit sore."

JJ looked up at Rossi who took the hint and went to grab a glass of water for Emily as JJ and Gideon carefully helped Emily to stand. They looked at each other briefly and then decided that the observation room, where Rossi went to get the water, would be best for Emily and so helped her from the interrogation room to the observation room where she gingerly sat down on a spare seat.

Rossi passed the glass of water and she nodded her thanks as she took a tentative sip, and sighed silently as the cool liquid soothed her throat a bit. She continued to take little sips as she watched JJ and Rossi start to bombard Gideon with questions about her safety. It was kind of strange to watch really because she realised that if Gideon had still been with the team and this had happened no-one would have grilled him about it or accused him of 'not giving a damn' about her, but since he'd left, and come back, that apparently meant that Gideon was responsible if the Unsub had even looked at her funny, 'stupid really,' she thought, 'he's a profiler and we always trusted him even when he wasn't here we trusted him, and now that he's back it's like that trust doesn't even exist!'

Finally, after spending a good five or so minutes of listening to JJ and Rossi play hardball with Gideon, Emily had had enough and she said, in a voice louder and stronger than it actually felt to her, "The Unsub's got three distinct personalities; the first one is that of a child, probably the original personality; the second is that of a well-to-do family man who believes us to be some sort of great thing... like a gift to humanity; and the last one..." she trailed off as she tenderly rubbed her neck where there was still a partial handprint, "well, he's not so friendly; anger issues and seems to have a hatred of women of any nature."

JJ and Rossi looked at each other and Gideon took the opportunity to move over to Emily and sit down next to her. He looked at her and said, "What else?"

Emily smiled inside and continued after taking another sip of water, "the first one is named Anthony, the second is called David and the last, well the last one is called Samael..." she frowned and began to think.

JJ, who thought Emily was finished, says, "Reid would be useful right about now..." and Rossi smiles at her and is about to speak when Emily cuts across him.

"Samael; it can be the name of both an Angel and a Demon. I think that this Unsub has this last persona as being Samael who was believed to be a member of the 'Heavenly Host' but he had the worst and most destructive of duties! He was also considered to be an Angel of Death..." Emily sighed and looked at the others and saying defensively, "What? Reid isn't the only one who can churn out information you know!"

Gideon chuckled and JJ smiled at Emily, Rossi smiled slightly but then he said, "Has anyone checked up on Hotch and Morgan today?"

Gideon answered, saying, "Yes. I was at the hospital earlier, Reid's still there and Hotch and Morgan were still sleeping when I left."

Rossi nods and says, "Okay..."

Emily, after taking note of how much the tension in the room had dissipated chose to make sure it didn't rise again by saying, "I think we should go and visit them; you know, tell them that the case is closed."

"And to tell them that the Unsub almost throttled you?" JJ raised an eyebrow at Emily when she shrugged and looked at the one-way-mirror.

"Come on then," Rossi said, as he tried to steer JJ out of the door, "Emily? Jason?" he enquired as he noticed that neither of them were making a move towards the door.

"We'll be there in a minute," Emily sighed and continued to stare through the mirror. Gideon didn't respond but also began to stare through the mirror.

Rossi frowned and was about to say something when JJ placed a gentle hand on him arm and nodded towards the door. Understanding what she meant Rossi and JJ left the room and made their way through the station in the direction where the SUV was parked.

* * *

Emily silently stared through the mirror at the other side as Gideon did the same; neither of them wanted to speak first but they both knew that one of them would have to, and Gideon decided to give up the game-play and talk.

"I'm sorry I left," he said softly as he continued to stare through the mirror, not looking at Emily.

"No you're not; you're sorry you came back," Emily corrected, her voice soft and still slightly hoarse making it sound like she had been crying, she sighed and said, "Why did you come back?"

Gideon stopped and thought, 'why did I come back?' he wondered to himself and finally forced himself to say, "I... I don't know..."

"I think I do," Emily said as she finally turned to look at him and Gideon felt her eyes on him so he also turned to face her. She began to speak, softly and firmly, "You left because you couldn't handle it anymore; you became a case, a victim and you didn't want to be that. You stayed away all this time, but I'm guessing you kept an eye on us, made sure we were still alive," she looked at him pointedly, "but you didn't come when we needed help, you didn't come to us when we all thought one or more of us would die; you came to us when we had a bomber. A bomber who left clues for Reid; not the team on the most part, but  _Reid_. He was going after Reid in a way that all the others didn't; he was giving Reid  _challenges_  of the mind first, then he was going to  _take him away_... and  _that's_  why you came back; because you don't want Reid to be taken, not by him. But what I want to know is  _why_? Why this guy? Why do you not want him to get Reid?" she looked at him intently and waited in silence for him to answer.

Gideon stared at her and smiled sadly, it was typical that Emily would put it together when none of the others did, 'oh the irony...' he thought bitterly as he sighed and began to answer her questions, "I care for Reid, I mentored him in University for several years when I was recovering, I got him onto the BAU in the first place Emily. I put him in the line of danger, a danger that most people his age never get to witness or fully understand; and I feel responsible for that. When Reid joined the team I could tell that everyone thought he couldn't hack it; even Aaron, but I watched, and I waited for when Reid would shine. I waited for the moment when Reid would be the key to saving a child's life, or catching a killer, because I wanted him to see that this job isn't easy to handle and it's hard to swallow daily, but the fact that he was responsible for saving a little girl's life!" Gideon smiled and held his hands in front of him as though he were pleading, "That's what makes it worthwhile for someone to do this Emily, you understand that... and I thought that, when I left, Reid would be safe with all of you because he was part of the team and you all cared for him as though he were family; Derek especially," Emily smiled at that and Gideon continued, "but I was always afraid of one thing... only one... and that one thing almost happened today."

Gideon closed his eyes and dropped his hands to his sides before taking a deep breath and continuing, "After Tobias Hankel, I realised that Reid would always be the best target for our Unsub's to go after; he was the youngest, the weakest looking, the least capable of fighting back... and I was afraid that I had brought him to this life only to become a victim... again."

Gideon looked away finally and stared in the direction of the one-way-mirror, not really seeing it as his eyes began to water but he refused to let a single tear fall. Emily silently observed him and thought, 'Oh God... he came back to protect Reid... and everyone's been shunning him...' she frowned slightly and spoke, her voice soft and her words gentle, "When you left, Reid was very bothered; he was tetchy and easily annoyed. He even went to your cabin; where you knew he'd go, and he found a letter addressed only to him. He was curious about why you addressed it to him and Hotch said it was because you knew that he'd go looking for you; no-one else. And I was curious about that, you were all a team, a family; why would Reid be the only one who would go looking and it's taken me this long to realise it. Reid saw you as the father that he never had; you took care of him, challenged him, taught him, guided him, and when you could you protected him. He was doing what is an instinct to everyone; he went looking for the only family he can look at without feeling like a failure, or a-a bad son..." Emily shook her head and wiped a tear that was rolling down her cheek, "you should tell him Gideon, tell him why you came back and... tell him why you have to leave again."

Gideon looked at her and smiled sadly, "you picked up on that too... you're getting good," he watched her as she responded.

"I've always been good, it just took me twenty-or-so-years to realise that I'm good at what I do because it's what I'm meant to do, and I'm not a failure to anyone; especially myself," she replied as Gideon smiled wider, "but you knew that from the day we first met didn't you?"

"It was written all over you; you're one of the best profilers there are in the field, the same as everyone on the team is," Gideon responded, "all you needed was some faith in your own abilities."

"I guess I found that faith working with the team," she conceded and smiled at Gideon, "I think JJ and David will be worried."

"Yeah, you're right. Shall we?" Gideon blinked and held out his arm which Emily linked her own through as they left the observation room and made their way to the SUV where JJ and Rossi were sitting, drinking coffee and chatting about the weather.


	9. Chapter 9

JJ and Rossi waited in relative silence for Emily and Gideon to come out and join them so they could go and visit their injured team members; all three of them ironically. As they waited JJ suddenly decided to start up a conversation with Rossi as she hated the rather tense silence and so said, "Coffee?"

Rossi's response was quite understandable, he looked at her with a very confused expression and wondered for a moment whether she was using some sort of code; coffee... what on earth would that mean? JJ, perhaps sensing Rossi's confusion, or realising that one word questions weren't always very explanatory, expanded by adding, "Do you want a coffee?"

' _Oh... coffee coffee...'_  Rossi smiled inside and nodded in response, "Please," and JJ, who now had something to do, hopped out of the SUV and quickly made her way over to the Starbucks that was conveniently close by; on the other side of the street in fact.

She waited in the line, which was relatively small for Starbucks, and wondered what Emily could be discussing with Gideon because she didn't doubt for a second that Emily wasn't the one doing most of the talking; Gideon rarely said a full sentence half-the-time. When she reached the counter she quickly placed her order, making certain to get drinks for Gideon and Emily  _'I can't exactly use the excuse of "I forgot to get Gideon one" can I now'_  she thought to herself as the barely pubescent boy placed the four cups of coffee into the cardboard cup tray and gave her the change from the fifteen dollars she'd given him.

Nodding her thanks she turned from the counter and left the shop, made her way swiftly across the relatively busy road and opened the front passenger door to the SUV. She smiled at Rossi who leaned across and took the tray from her hands so she could climb in properly; she'd just discovered that the boots she was wearing made it a bit harder to climb into an SUV with her hands full with coffee cups.

Once she was in, and wasn't focused on cursing her shoes, Rossi handed her the coffee she'd got for herself; which happened to be a low-fat latte, and took his own sugarless black coffee from the tray which he placed carefully on the dashboard; he didn't need to ask who the other two were for.

They sat there in comparative silence before JJ commented on the weather, "Least it's better than it was a few days ago," as she sipped her latte and looked out the windshield.

"Yeah, well I hope it says like this; I'm not that big a fan of rain," Rossi quipped as JJ laughed slightly, "there they are," he added as he spied Emily and Gideon exiting the station; arms linked in the same way you would see ballroom-dancers arms linked as they came on stage.

JJ, who had also noticed them, nodded and said, "I'll give them their drinks, you start the car," which was a tad bit obvious since Rossi was the one who was sitting in the driver's seat and he had already placed his cup in the cup holder on the dashboard and had his hand on the keys in the ignition; ready to make the engine flare into life.

As Emily and Gideon reached the SUV they finally unlinked their arms and each made their way to each of the passenger doors; Gideon chose the backdoor on the driver's side meaning that he had to step off the pavement and onto the road whilst Emily chose the door behind JJ. When they both opened their doors JJ said, "Got coffee's for you."

Emily replied with a soft thanks and Gideon mumbled a thank-you as he climbed in the back and closed his door; Emily's door slamming less than a second after his own. JJ turned in her seat slightly and passed the tray with their coffee's to them as Rossi started the engine. Emily passed Gideon his drink after he put on his seatbelt and then he held the tray as she put hers on also.

Once they all had their drinks and seatbelts on they all focused on the impending visit to Hotch and Morgan.

* * *

Reid sighed and tried to ignore the pointless conversation that Morgan was currently engaging in with one of the hot nurses; it was one of the ones who was actually meant to be in paediatrics if the colour of her scrubs told him anything at all. He was starting to regret being left at the hospital, especially since Morgan had been flirting with every nurse and doctor he could, Hotch had been rather uncooperative with conversations, and Reid was finding himself to be quite the interest of several of the physio-dudes; and he did indeed mean 'dudes'. He had decided to make a rule that he would abide by whenever he was relegated to hospitals; if he had a set of crutches, much like the ones he had now, then if anyone propositioned him, as several nurses both female and male had done, then he was well within his rights to defend himself from sexual harassment with bodily harm... at least, that was how he was going to sell it to a judge and jury in court.

Closing his eyes he failed to see the rest of the team coming down the corridor, looking for all the world like they were about to embark on a life-threatening mission; which if one thought about it, they were about to visit two of their team that were renown for hating to be in one place for more than an hour. Still, no-one ever said being on a team wasn't without difficulties did they?

Rossi entered the room first and smirked at Morgan and said, "Derek, I see you're getting on well with the nurses."

Reid's eyes snapped open and he took in the sight of the entire team all piled in a single room, that was a bit small for seven people-

"MORGAN! Where's my sweetcakes?" A loud and bubbly voice echoed into the room from the corridor.

The room was a bit small for seven people, now it was cramped for eight.

Garcia burst into the room saying profusely, "Oh my sexy man! Strouse the louse wouldn't let me leave until I'd finished all my write-ups and re-write-ups and everything!" She stopped by Morgan's bed and gave Reid a pointed look who hurriedly hoisted himself from the seat his was in and hobbled over to stand next to Emily. Garcia sat herself down in the recently vacated seat and began to whiter on about random things to Morgan as the nurse slipped away and out of the room. JJ smiled and went and stood next to Morgan's bed as Rossi went over to talk to Hotch who had been watching the entire thing with a growing look of amusement on his face.

Emily, Reid and Gideon stayed where they were; not speaking but not avoiding each other either. They watched in silence as the rest of the team interacted and messed-about, feeling happy for them but Reid and Gideon both knew that they would have to speak to one another at some point; even though Reid was desperately avoiding any conversations with Gideon that consisted of more than five words.

Emily, finally deciding that Reid and Gideon, like most men, wouldn't start a conversation unless forced to and so took things into her own hands. She said, quietly and softly but with a firmness that a mother would be proud of, "Reid, Gideon come with me for a minute would you?" though she made it sound like a question both Reid and Gideon knew it was anything but, Emily was expecting them to follow her as she quietly left the room and so they followed her.

Neither of them knew what was going to occur, but Gideon did have an inkling and felt like turning and running away that very moment,  _'but I can't run from this... not anymore...'_  and so he calmed himself and followed Emily in silence.

* * *

Reid stood in silence next to Gideon as Emily closed the door behind them and looked about the room that she had lead them into; it was an empty private room that looked to have recently been in use. Wondering what Emily wanted to talk to them about he turned to her and opened his mouth, but she cut him off before he could even speak.

"Gideon, Reid, you guys are going to discuss this because you need to stop with the distance and the avoidance and the guilt and anger and resentment," she said looking at each of them pointedly, "I'm going to leave and go back to the team; you two are going to stay in here until you have sorted everything out, understand?"

Gideon nodded mutely in response whilst Reid gave no indication of hearing her; he just looked at her with a look of surprise. And then he began to argue.

"Emily! You can't just order people around like that!" he protested but Emily was far past the point where she would've listened; she was in no mood for Reid and his attempts to avoid confrontation with Gideon.

Emily stood directly in front of Reid, her shoulders squared and her jaw set, and said in a voice that clearly said she wasn't taking no for an answer, "Reid. You have been avoiding Gideon, and any conversations with him for the past three days; now statistically speaking that clearly shows that you are having difficulty processing the fact that he's back. For a person who has a 183 IQ you're incredibly dense and I'm tired of watching you and Gideon tap dancing around the fire that is like a giant pink elephant in the corner of every room the two of you are in!" she took a breath and noted with great satisfaction that Reid looked like he had been slapped with a wet fish, "so I'll say this only once, neither of you are leaving this room until you've sorted your problems and there is no room for negotiation!"

Before Reid could respond Emily turned on her heel and strode out of the room, slamming the door behind her and leaving Reid and Gideon alone to talk. For a long time neither of them spoke until Gideon finally broke the silence and said, "She wasn't that domineering the last time I saw you guys."

* * *

 

Sometimes a friend cannot be as obvious as an enemy but you know someone's a friend when they take a bullet for you, when they risk their life for you, when they give up everything they had just to help protect you. Whether it be from an insane sense of responsibility or an overwhelming urge to protect or impress a true friend is not the one who stands up in the crowd and take the accolades for your work, a true friend is not the one who sits away from you and whispers about you behind your back, no. A true friend is something rare that so few get to witness and experience even once in their entire lifetime. But sometimes you can't always identify a true friend when they've caused you pain, when they've said or done something that makes your heart ache and your temper rise to the point where you want to scream and shout out loud so that they can hear how hurt you are.

 

 

Which was something the great Spencer Reid, with all his intelligence and worldly view, should have remembered.  _Should have_ , not did. The silence in the room was almost palpable to Reid, like a real, living entity and he shuddered inside, drawing his intelligence around him like a blanket to stop the chill that was creeping into his bones, into his very being. After Emily had left he'd been too stunned to speak, at least until Gideon had joked 'she wasn't that domineering the last time I saw you guys'. That had made his silence, his shocked mind, restart with a vengeance he'd never known.

In all his years of living in Las Vegas getting bullied by the jocks, heck even by other geeks, and then joining the BAU where he'd been shot at, killed then revived by a multiple-personality madman and left hanging when people he'd known and cared for went and offed themselves or disappeared without a trace, he'd never felt such an insatiable urge to find something that could inflict great amounts of harm and inflict it upon a fellow human being... at least not until that moment.

Never one to truly understand how to react to such an urge Reid let his anger fuel his words, knowing that physical violence was a definite 'no, no' but tearing someone apart verbally was still within his power; mostly.

"Yeah, when was the last time we saw you? Or should I say when you bothered to show your face to us?" he snapped, his voice deliberately sharp and grating even to his own ears; god how he hated those sorts of voices; obnoxious know-it-all's who thought they could talk to everyone else as if they were lower than them,  _'well, if the hat fits'_  he thought grumpily as he speared Gideon with a glare so precise and sharp that he was quite certain it could have sliced a diamond.

He felt a strange sort of satisfaction when he saw Gideon visibly flinch thinking that his words had hit a mark but then he thought about how good a profiler Gideon was,  _'there's no way he'd slip up that easy... he's trying to make me think that he's hurt by what I've said to him'_.

Gideon tried not to flinch at the malice he heard in Reid's words but he couldn't help it, it had been a long day and the sheer quantity of emotions that had passed through him was staggering; how he'd managed up till now to not freak-out and fall apart he didn't know but he was quite thankful for it,  _'maybe I'm getting used to all of this again?'_  he thought as he watched Reid silently from the corner of his eye.

"I... I'm sorry Reid, I never meant to hurt any of you," Gideon said as he took a deep breath and swallowed, he couldn't do this... not with Reid. With Morgan, Hotch or any of the others he could explain to them and tell them that he'd be leaving tomorrow but with Reid he couldn't... he just couldn't.

And then, as though someone had turned off the light, Reid's anger drained from him; all his evil and heartless intent to tear Gideon apart morphed into over-whelming feelings of abandonment and he felt like he could quite happily fade away and cease to be. All those times he'd thought about people in his life, both past and present, and if anyone had ever asked who it would be hardest to talk to without having the initial urge to do harm he would've said, without hesitation, his father. Well, he should know by now that what you expect and what you actually get are normally quite different; and this event was a prime example of such a thing.

"Yeah well, that's sort of the problem," Reid collapsed into one of the back-breaking chairs, not even acknowledging the fact that his back would be killing him some time tomorrow; he was too... numb. Staring out of the window to see one of the most spectacular views anyone could ever witness Reid just couldn't muster up the energy to feel awed by it; it was old to him now and the reflecting sun was nothing more than an annoyance to his sensitive eyes, "You never meant to hurt anyone you say... but the problem is, you did anyway... but why does that matter to you? We're just part of one of your lives, I'm sure you already had another life set-up when you came back here; let me guess?" he saw Gideon shift slightly out of the corner of his eye and knew he was right, "you were living in a cabin somewhere out in the wilderness, but not too far from people; I'm guessing somewhere in Alaska since you mentioned how you liked the snow and the cold, the town that's less than five-kilometres away is pretty small, I'd say no more than five hundred people live there all year-round and this suits you just fine. You rarely go into town, don't want to get close to people; no that would mean they'd start to get to know one aspect of you and after us, well... you just can't handle that anymore can you?" Reid now turned to look at Gideon, his eyes looking older and more dead than Gideon had ever, ever seen them before; it was the sort of look you'd expect someone who was dying at that very moment to give to you as you tried to save them. It said  _'I'm already broken... you can't fix me...'_  but there was another part that Gideon saw, deep-down in those dead eyes,  _'and you're to blame for breaking me...'_

"I guess you've been trying to find the best way to tell me that you're going to leave again right?" Reid continued and when he saw Gideon incline his head slightly he continued, "well that's kind of pointless since I've known that from the moment I saw you. You can't stay around us, you're place on the team's been filled as best it can and we've moved on from you; even the emotionally vulnerable me," Reid slowly stood up and looked Gideon directly in the eyes, "but if it makes you feel any better, you can say to me 'I'm sorry Spencer, but I'm going to leave you again, I'm going to abandon you again like I did last time, no hard feelings?' but if I'm honest, I'm past the point of caring about what you say because I've got two teammates, two friends who are injured and I want to be with them; like a real teammate would be."

Gideon found he couldn't speak. He was frozen. Everything Reid had said had penetrated him to the bone. Further than that; it had penetrated him to his very soul. He felt like he was being crushed by guilt and reality. He watched in shocked silence as Reid hobbled past him and over to the door without saying a word, he just couldn't speak. He couldn't even breathe properly!

Reid paused before he opened the door and turned to look at Gideon. He watched him for a moment, with an unintelligible look upon his tired and sad face before softly saying, "for the sake of it; I'm sorry it's ended like this but I can't forgive you, I won't forgive you Gideon. And for that I'm sorry," before he opened the door and left the room and Gideon to his broken self.

* * *

_Three days later_

"So! What are we going to do when you guys get out of here?" Garcia happily exclaimed as she once again kicked Morgan's butt on the portable games platform she and JJ had managed to sneak into the room.

"Hold on babycakes, we're still going to be here for a week or so and how do you keep winning!" Morgan groaned as Garcia took his head, figuratively speaking, and danced about with it on the screen.

"Simple studmuffin, I'm brilliant and hot and you're just hot!" Garcia laughed as she pecked Morgan lightly on the cheek as he scowled at her. She knew he was ticked off at having to stay in the hospital whilst his injuries healed but she just couldn't wait for them to get out of the place! It smelt funny.

Morgan sighed and dropped the controller onto his lap, effectively giving up, and leaned back slowly until he was resting against the half-dozen pillows he'd 'requisitioned' for his comfort. Garcia silently studied him as she turned off the console and made herself as comfortable as possible in the chair she'd vacated earlier when they'd started the fight-fest. She'd been hoping that he'd start talking about what went on whilst he was trapped, you know the odd titbit for the team to chew on, but there was nothing; nada, nil, zip, zilch. He hadn't said a word about it beyond the basic,  _'well, I wouldn't recommend it to tourists... maybe thrill-seekers'_.

As Morgan was closing his eyes, cursing the fact that he was easily exhausted since his body was still recovering, the door to the private room opened and Rossi, JJ and Emily walked in looking... shifty.  _'Oh great... what have they done to feel guilty?'_ Morgan eyed them with suspicion and said, "What have you guys done now?"

Rossi looked at the two girls who nodded at him in encouragement before answering hesitantly, "well... we... err... we've come to tell you and Aaron that Gideon is leaving today," he waited for the explosion of anger, confusion, betrayal and wasn't at all surprised that he got it. What surprised him was who it came from.

"What?" Hotch asked slowly, staring at Rossi with a deadly glare; Morgan looked at him surprised that he was awake, he could've sworn Hotch had been asleep the whole time he and Garcia were playing that cursed game, "when was he going to come and see us? Was he even going to bother?"

Rossi shifted slightly, clearly uncomfortable with the look Hotch had pinned him with and more than a little disconcerted with the controlled voice that Hotch was using; though you'd have to be a fool not to see the anger in his eyes and the barely veiled fury in his voice. He looked away from Hotch, trying to speak to Morgan but he still ended up staring at Hotch again, "I don't know, we figured we'd come and tell you just encase he... forgot."

Hotch was silent for a long time, a long time that started to make everyone; even Morgan and Garcia, worried. Taking a deep breath Hotch closed his eyes and said, or growled more like, "Where are my clothes?"

JJ and Emily immediately began to protest against Hotch's obviously insane idea of  _leaving_  the hospital but they were silenced by Hotch's shout of, "Quiet!" They watched him as he slowly pushed back the covers on his bed and managed to get his legs off the bed and on the ground. Knowing that it would be pointless to argue with Hotch when he was this determined, Rossi silently moved over to help him and grabbed his clothes from the bottom drawer of the bedside cabinet; luckily they'd thought to bring him some clean clothes which was a suit and Rossi was both thanking and cursing himself for being the one to suggest bringing the clothes in the first place.

JJ pulled the dividing curtain across which blocked their view of Hotch as he got changed and they all waited in silence as they listened to Hotch's occasional hisses of pain as one of his ribs decided to remind him of its injury. Morgan, who was already dressed since he could move a lot easier, had carefully climbed out of his bed and was sitting gingerly on the edge; ready for when Hotch was fully dressed.

' _God! He's being an idiot!'_  Emily thought as she stared at the wall opposite her,  _'he should be resting! Not playing hunt-the-Gideon!'_  she sighed silently and JJ nudged her shoulder lightly in a show of reassurance which she felt grateful for.

Once Hotch was dressed and wasn't clutching his side in silent agony; which was why they'd ended up waiting for over twenty-minutes for him, the group left the room at a slow and steady pace. They made their way down to the ground floor where, after a brief argument with their doctors; during which time Hotch's skills as a brilliant lawyer were once again given the spotlight, both he and Morgan were discharged as being AMA (Against Medical Advice) and ended up sitting in the SUV which was quickly making its way towards the police station that had been their base for the case that had caused them all so much harm and pain.

* * *

Waiting for the train to arrive at the station Gideon sighed sadly and pulled out a rather crumpled and frayed looking photograph. He stroked it wistfully as he ignored the various passersby who were running from one part of life to the next; trying to get the fastest train out of limbo and to heaven... or hell depending on what type of bureaucrat they were.

Such a strange place is a train station; you have the largest congregation of people from all walks of life that pass each other by, push past and even stand next to waiting for the doors to salvation or damnation to open, and none of them really acknowledge each other. They are so busy in their own little microcosm lives' that other people and their problems do not matter and do not even occur in their minds.

A child alone in the middle of a train station would be so lost and scared, all alone in the big, scary, adult-world and there's no mommy or daddy to hold their hand and guide them through. A mid-aged man who is desperately waiting for his train to come in so he can get to one of the most important career's in his life, would be ignored by others even if he was so stressed that he suffered a mild heart attack; his tired features and ragged breaths would be mistaken for defeat or failure.

No-one seems to stop anymore and care about people, so why would they notice Gideon sitting on a bench staring with moistened tears at a photograph of what he could have called a family? The answer is that they wouldn't. They don't care about him, they don't care about the horrors he's been exposed to or felt first-hand. They don't care about anything beyond getting from place A to place B and then onto a possible place C. Their lives revolve around train stations and stress. Why would they want to look at someone else just like them?

* * *

"Hotch man! Try and walk at a steady pace! We don't want to have to drag your ass back to the hospital you know!" Morgan warned as Hotch moved too quickly towards the SUV, seemingly assuming that he would be driving; where he got that idea from Morgan didn't know but he knew that happy pills that got rid of the pain broken ribs caused and driving definitely did not mix!

Hotch, who had, without thought, grabbed the handle for the driver's side door and subsequently stretched the muscles over his ribs, was desperately trying to clutch his ribs and not cause himself even more pain as he did so. He gifted Morgan with a glare which would've made anyone back away for fear of getting torn apart by a wild and wounded animal, but Morgan was Morgan and his team leader was both injured and being a bull-headed son-of-a-bitch.

"He's right Aaron. I'll drive but we don't know where he's gone, we don't even know if he's left yet," Rossi tried to soothe Hotch who looked at him with a look that just screamed, I'm-swallowing-my-pride-so-you'd-best-drive-faster-than-the-speed-limit-or-so-help-me-God.

"But we don't know if he hasn't," Hotch said quietly as he took control of his pain responses and pushed back his awareness of the broken ribs back where it had been before he'd moved his arm. He nodded at Rossi and said, "Jason will go somewhere which has the quickest available method of transport out of the city."

Emily looked at Hotch and ventured a guess, "Airport?" she looked at Hotch who gave her a glance before he shook his head.

"No, too expensive, and Jason was never one for flying; even in the jet he wasn't too comfortable with being in a flying coffin I think he called it once," Hotch smiled slightly and Morgan snorted; he too remembered that comment from Gideon not long after he'd first joined the team.

"He'll probably go to the train station; it's quick, normally reliable and pretty cheap depending on how far you want to go," Rossi thought out loud. Hotch nodded at him and moved to the other side of the SUV and carefully opened the front passenger door.

Morgan, Garcia and Rossi were already moving towards the SUV and had their doors open before Hotch had his open enough to climb in. Emily hung back and decided to help Hotch get in, helping him haul his rather tired and pained frame into the front seat before saving him the additional pain of leaning over and closing the door.

She then quickly hopped into the SUV and pulled out her cell as Hotch said, "call Reid, tell him what we're doing and to not bother coming to the hospital and to stay at the police station."

Emily quickly dialled Reid and informed him of what they were doing as Garcia pulled out a portable mac-book computer which she started up before accessing the FBI database and using it to search through the CCTV of all the train stations in D.C. She looked at Morgan who was next to her, looking out the window, and said softly, "I've pulled up all the stations, should I tell Hotch?"

He looked at her and shook his head minutely, "narrow-them down if you can and see if you can use your facial software stuff to find him first," he whispered into her ear before he smiled at her and gave her a peck on the cheek, "God you're such a tech-goddess."

She beamed at him and blushed as she turned away from him and focused on her computer, searching for Gideon as quickly as she possibly could. She filtered out some of the busiest stations that didn't really do that many outgoing trains from the city and instead focused on ones that would be less-crowded and more external. After that she then began to run the facial recognition software she had 'improved' slightly meaning it worked 30% faster than other FRSs and was connected with every known database on the planet; apart from one or two which even her technical abilities couldn't get her access to.

Hotch, who had heard Garcia's question to Morgan chose not to say anything knowing that he'd only make Garcia more nervous and worried than she already was; afterall, two of the people she cared about had left the care of the qualified doctors and nurses to chase after a broken man... heck, if he was in her position, he'd be just as nervous so he gave her the chance and time to work on the search before asking her anything.

* * *

A young girl came over to him and plonked herself down on the bench next to him; she wore a strange mixture of dark, depressing clothes and bright, bubbly clothes which, though they contrasted each other, seemed to suit her perfectly. She looked at him inquisitively, then at the photograph still held in his hand, and whispered, "Are they your family?"

He startled slightly, even though her clothes were the most noticeable on planet earth, he had not noticed her presence. He looked at her for a moment before looking back at the photograph and answering, his voice soft and sad, "once they were, I'm not too sure anymore."

"Why not? If they were your family once then they still are your family," she asked, tilting her head to the side and looking at him more intensely with bright, intelligent green eyes. She looked down at the photograph and added, "they look happy, are they still alive?"

He smiled slightly at her curiosity and decided to ask, "Don't you know that you shouldn't talk to strangers?" he tried to give her a stern look but it didn't seem to work.

She shrugged slightly and smiled lop-sidedly, "meh, you don't act like other strangers and my parent's are cops so most people are nervous when I tell them that," she looked at the picture before pointing at one of the people in the photograph in particular, "his eyes are like my dad's; if they weren't brown... he looks that sad sometimes."

"Does your father work for the D.C department?" Gideon asked out of curiosity, he took note of her hair colour and her facial features; none of the cops at precinct he'd been to looked like her.

"No, my parent's both work in New York; we're just here because my dad had to visit an old friend, said he was being a bit of a problem for some of the police officers around here," she answered. Holding her hand out she declared, "I'm Alexandria, who are you?"

He smiled and shook her hand answering her, "Hello Alexandria, I'm Jason. It's been nice to meet you but I think that might be your father there."

She looked over her shoulder and noticed her father looking at her before turning back to Gideon and grinning, "yep, that's him. I'd best go, we've got to get the train back... still don't see why we had to fly; flying's safer."

Gideon nodded as she stood up and fully expected her to turn and go to her father but she didn't. She looked down at him for a long moment before saying, "if they're not dead and you miss them so much maybe you should go back and stay with them. No-one deserves to be alone, and everyone needs their family."

He stared after her in shook as she turned and ran off towards her dad and waved at him over her shoulder. He was staring in surprise when a small woman came marching up to her daughter and the father, who incidentally was about 6 ft tall, shouting as she did, "Bobby! She's grounded when we get back!"

The father, Bobby, sighed and replied, "Alex! She was just saying hello, there's no need to ground her."

Whatever else there was to the argument, Gideon didn't hear anymore since the trio wandered off towards one of the trains that had just pulled into the train station. He looked back down at the photograph in his hand and looked at the one Alexandria had pointed to and likened to her father. It was Reid.

* * *

"I've got him!" Garcia exclaimed, forgetting that she hadn't even told Hotch she was looking for Gideon, 'no time to die of embarrassment' she thought as Hotch immediately asked her where, "New Carrollton Amtrak Station. He went in about twenty minutes ago and only three, inner-city trains have left since then. And there's another one leaving now; the end destination is New York."

"He wouldn't go to New York; that's too busy," Hotch said, as he watched Rossi turned the wheel and send the SUV careening around a corner and onto one of the main streets that would take them to New Carrollton Amtrak Station as quickly as possible.

"He'd probably go somewhere west, right?" Emily asked and Hotch nodded in response, immediately agreeing with her thought.

"Garcia, check how many trains from the station head to the west of D.C," he ordered as she frantically typed away trying to find what it was Hotch wanted.

A moment or two later, and after two spectacularly dangerous drifts from Rossi, they were just pulling up in front of the station as Garcia called out, "only two; one left two hours ago and the next one's set to leave in the next half-hour. Platform eight."

With that knowledge, the group climbed out of the SUV, Garcia shoving the powering-down mac-book into her large shoulder bag as she slid out after Morgan, and made their way towards the entrance of the station. Just as they came up to the entrance and the doors slid open for them a person stepped out into the sun just in front of them, looking every bit as relieved and surprised to see them as they did him.

"Jason..." Hotch muttered. He looked at Gideon in silent surprise and Gideon turned to look at him.

Smiling Gideon said softly, "Aaron, I'm sorry I didn't come to say goodbye to you in person... that was wrong and cowardly of me."

"Yes, it was," Hotch conceded as he stood in front of Gideon who looked him directly in the eyes, trying not to look away in guilt.

"Can you forgive me for my cowardice?" Gideon asked gently, he fully expected Hotch to say no like Reid had but then he reasoned the Hotch was someone who could swallow his anger and hatred for the sake of others.

"It's not my forgiveness you need," Hotch said softly as he indicated with his head slightly, "it's theirs,  _all_  of theirs," he was implying that Gideon needed JJs and Reid's forgiveness, rather than his own.

Gideon nodded in comprehension and looked at Morgan, Garcia and Rossi; excluding Emily because he knew as much as she did that she had forgiven him already and had accepted his decision. He looked and studied them for a moment, even Rossi who gave him a steady, cold stare, before saying sincerely, "I'm so sorry for all the hurt I've caused you and for not even having the decency of saying goodbye to your faces, and I know that you've made up your minds about me but I want to try and show you the way I really am. Can you forgive me for being such a blind fool?"

Morgan stared at him unblinkingly as Garcia looked away and Rossi stared at him blankly, 'I've blown it' he thought before Garcia smiled at him and dived at him, enveloping him in one of her most famous hugs. "Of course I forgive you Gideon!" she exclaimed as she gave him a kiss on the cheek and squeezed him tightly. He smiled at her but still kept his focus on Morgan and Rossi.

Rossi watched as Garcia hugged Gideon before deciding to swallow his pride and his preconceived opinion of Gideon based on Reid's response and nodding silently. Gideon noticed the nod and gave one of his own in return before focusing entirely on Morgan who had yet to do anything beyond stare at him.

"Morgan?" He looked at him and felt Garcia loosen her grip to look at the dark-skinned man. He knew she was looking at him questioningly and he also knew that Morgan needed to make up his own mind because he, much like Reid, had been let-down and hurt by others before but the only difference between him and Reid was that Morgan had had more time on the team and so had managed to find support in more than one single person unlike Reid; for the most part.

Morgan looked at the man he'd trusted, the man he'd told some of his darkest secrets to, the man who he'd thought of as a real father and mentor, the man who had ran away when he'd got hurt, the man who'd left him and the team in pieces. He was the man who had helped him with many things. He was the man who had damaged him by leaving. He was the man who'd helped get rid of the nightmares. He was the man who had caused his mind to regress and blame himself. He was the man who had brought a young, inexperienced boy onto the team and helped him evolve. He was the man who had left that boy and he'd had to help him. He the man who had given him a family and a brother. He was the man who had broken his family and brother. He was the man who disappeared. He was the man who had shown up out of the blue. He was the man who... He was the man that... He was the man who... He was the man that...

He was to blame but he was also to congratulate. He should be angry with him. He should be happy to see him. He should say no. He should say yes. He should hold onto his anger. He should let it go and move on.

He made his choice, he chose his path, took his selected path and accepted whatever would come of it. "I forgive you Gideon."

Gideon smiled and felt like he could cry there and then. Looking at Hotch who nodded he laughed and Hotch smiled at him.

"Just one thing," Morgan said, causing Gideon to stop laughing and look at him suddenly serious, "if you ever disappear on us again, at least give us a forwarding address, do you know how much mail we've got for you back at Quantico?"


	10. Chapter 10

Sometimes life can hate a person far more than they realise, sometimes a person's very existence may depend upon a brief moment where the impossibilities and the improbabilities become nothing more than of null value as the mind and body challenge each other in a match for total dominance. Who will win; conscious thought or pure by-gone instinct? It's quite the battle to observe but not one that you wish to ever be involved within, too torturous and too tiring in all manners of the word for a single mind to comprehend, and most certainly for millions, even billions, of minds to ponder over.

As it is, the chances of ever seeing such an actual event and surviving is essentially slim-to-none, such a battle occurs when one is literally on the verge of falling into the black abyss that can envelope and surround and drown without so much as a word but more of a single, eternal caress that beckons you to stay and remain within its grasp... tethered to death.

Of course, some people have managed to survive such an event in a manner so as to come out relatively unscathed, and they are always filled with a highly intoxicating feeling of sudden invulnerability, so much so that when a teenager has previously been stabbed and left for dead, but managed to survive, decides to celebrate his sudden reprise from death he chooses the most immature and singularly stupid thing in the entire existence of mankind; even from the time when man was nothing more than an irrespective speck of primordial dust on the tooth of a T-Rex.

Joy, with a capital J, riding in a stolen motor around the streets of D.C because he and his friends are too intoxicated with something a little more common than surviving near death experiences; beer. It makes for such a tragedy if they were to be caught by the cops and locked up for a night wouldn't it now?

But, moving on from that little aspect of their unfortunate luck, it is more prudent to focus on the one person whom everyone seems to care for above and beyond the call of duty, who everyone absolutely, irrefutably has this almost supernatural urge to protect from everything that is even the least bit bad in the big-ol' scary world.

* * *

"So, where are Reid and JJ?" Gideon asked as he stood next to the black SUV and thought to himself,  _'how are we all going to fit in there?'_

Hotch looked at him before answering, "They're at the police precinct we used as HQ during this case," he looked at the SUV and raised a single eyebrow in thought, unconsciously repeating Gideon's thought,  _'how are all going to fit in there? I think we're going to need a bigger SUV...'_

"Are you kidding me Hotch, we didn't even get to the place before all hell broke loose," Morgan laughed, he looked at Gideon who shrugged not understanding what Morgan meant.

"What do you mean Derek?" he asked as he gave his attention to Morgan who seemed to be grinning like a cat in a cannery _, 'obviously he's going to enjoy this bout of story-telling... or is it that he has something to tell me that I don't know? Could be a bit of both I suppose...'_

"We got a letter from the, unsub, "he hesitated minutely over mentioning the unsub before continuing on without deciding to acknowledge his conditioned fear of the unsub, "which Reid managed to translate, we got the jet over here, hey Hotch I've been meaning to ask you about that, why didn't we go by car? Quantico's only about forty-five minutes away?" he broke off from his story-telling so he could find out the answer to the question he'd thought when Hotch had told them they were going in the jet to D.C.

Hotch looked at him as did Rossi and Emily, "didn't you hear the news on the way to work?" he asked looking at Morgan without openly showing his surprise,  _'well... go figure...'_

"Nope, I was late had to catch the bus," Morgan shrugged with his one good shoulder and grinned, "but why should I listen to the news, Reid's the compact and portable version of CBS anyway."

Emily smirked at that and even Rossi cracked a smile as Gideon shook his head in amusement. Hotch looked at Morgan and answered slowly, "there was a major pile-up on the freeway heading to D.C, over forty-cars were caught up in it; all police cars strangely... they were after two felons from Illinois county. It would have taken us hours to get past it, or even to detour around it, so Strouse and I decided that using the jet would be ultimately quicker and might help save some lives."

Morgan looked at Hotch and then asked quietly, "was anybody killed?" he didn't want to think about it but if he'd had known about it he wouldn't have been so... well him on the jet at least; he'd have been more solemn.

"A few," Hotch admitted, he didn't know all the details but from what he'd found out not long after they'd got on the jet and he'd checked with the pilot, "the last I knew the death count was five or six. I don't know if it's got any higher since then since I've been kind of busy here."

Morgan was silent for a long moment before he said, "do you think we should go HQ, grab Reid and JJ and go home?"

"Oh yes please!" Garcia exploded, destroying the tense and depressed atmosphere around them, "I need to get back to my babies and make sure no-one's caused them any lasting damage!"

Morgan, trying to keep his happiness alive decided to say to her, "just point them out to me babycakes and I'll make 'em treat your babies with respect."

Garcia blushed slightly and laughed, bubbling with excitement she responded, "Oh you can bet that sexy ass of yours that I will!"

Rossi and Emily grinned in amusement at Morgan and Garcia's antics whilst Hotch and Gideon both simultaneously shook their heads in mock exasperation; though it might not have been in Gideon's case he was far too old for this sort of fraternisation, even if it was only verbal!

"Um, one question though people," Rossi said, cutting into the humour of the moment. Everyone looked at him and he asked, "how are we all going to fit in the SUV?"

* * *

Reid sat down awkwardly at the conference table in the police precinct, waiting impatiently for JJ to bring the coffee back with her that she'd gone to acquire from the coffee shop over the road, he bounced his leg in boredom for about a minute before he hauled himself up and hobbled out of the conference room and through the precinct until he reached the foyer. There he stood for a moment to catch his breath, walking with a cast that felt like it weighed something akin to an elephant on your leg tended to make you tired quickly, before resuming his partially fast hobble out of the precinct and down the steps, one at a time of course, until he reached the pavement of the sidewalk. He looked over the road and saw JJ just crossing the road carrying two coffees and two brown bags which probably contained bagels or something like that.

He moved closer to the edge of the sidewalk, the cast getting on his nerves quite a lot due to its considerable weight, and waited for JJ to cross with her treasure when he heard in the distance the sound of squealing tyres. It peaked his interest and he looked for the source of the ever increasing sound, looking to the end of the street he watched in surprise as a Mercedes came speeding around the corner, it's back-end fish-tailing out slightly, and sped right towards JJ who was trying to hold onto the two coffees and the two bags, which had chosen that moment to let themselves start to slip out of her grasp.

Reid, before he could utter a warning, was already running (as best a person can with a cast on their leg) towards her as the car raced him and managed to just shove her out of the way when the car impacted... against him.

* * *

Once they'd finally managed to figure out how to get everyone in the SUV they were on their way to the precinct; Hotch and Morgan were in the back this time round, Emily was in the front, Garcia in the back between Hotch and Morgan, Rossi driving, and Gideon had graciously decided to sit in the trunk of the SUV and was secretly thankful for the fact that the windows were tinted,  _'if not someone might think we were middle-aged hooligans...'_  he looked at Morgan, Garcia and Emily,  _'or a rather dysfunctional family?'_

Morgan had, as they'd been heading over, filled him in on the events surrounding their rather unusual case and Gideon was quite surprised at it all. A letter from the unsub, a challenge for Reid, the first clue deciphered by Reid when they were actually in D.C and thanks to a comment of Morgan's, then they tripping of Reid, his broken ankle and unintentional discovery of wet paint covering the second clue... extraordinary! And that was just the start of it!

Then they'd had the whole affair of Reid almost being kidnapped by the unsub as the rest of the team had tried to find the second bomb, which they successfully did after Reid had deciphered the second clue, the fact that Emily had known Russian and then Reid deciphering that clue too just in time as well! Adding into all of this of course was the fact that Reid had been kidnapped by this Ben-J fellow and had told the team of what he knew before the whole explosion in the crypt and how Morgan and Hotch had nearly died permanently! And him, of course... how could he forget that happy re-union with Reid...  _'I think I'm secretly thankful that I wasn't originally part of this case to start with'_  he thought as he re-focused his attention back on where they were.

Just as Rossi turned onto the road that the precinct was on they all saw, with matching looks of horror, a person in the middle of the road get hit by a silver Mercedes which, after hitting the poor person, didn't stop until it came nose-to-nose with the SUV which Rossi promptly threw into a handbrake turn which managed to block off the road.

In a flash Rossi and Emily were out and had their weapons drawn as they and a couple dozen other cops ordered the kids in the car to get out with their hands up. Morgan, Hotch, Gideon and Garcia managed to get themselves out in a relatively short amount of time, such was the miracle of the hormone adrenalin, and were looking over at the unmoving form of whoever had been hit when they noticed that someone with a familiar suit and blonde hair was kneeling next to the person.

"Oh no... it can't be..." Morgan breathed, not believing the level of bad luck the universe was giving them this week, "Hotch..."

"David!" Hotch barked as he started moving, with a worrying level of speed for someone with cracked and broken ribs, towards the familiar figure.

Rossi looked to Hotch and noticed where Hotch was heading, along with Gideon, Garcia and Morgan in tow, and also began to follow. He watched in silence as they approached and noticed someone who looked distinctly like-

"Jennifer!" Hotch shouted, as best he could, and felt as though someone had hit him in the gut when the blonde haired woman next to the prone figure on the ground looked up at him.

"Hotch..." she half sobbed as a police officer who was a certified paramedic gently shoved her aside and set to work on the blood-covered person she'd been cradling in her arms, "he pushed me out of the way... he... he was trying to protect me..."

She broke down in floods of tears and Hotch moved forward, ignoring his own injuries, and enveloped her in a hug that served to both try and reassure her that everything was going to be alright as well as try and hide her from the fact that everything might not be alright as the sounds of an ambulances sirens could be heard in the distance.

* * *

Life must hate them Morgan concluded sadly as he leaned back in the plastic chair in the hospital waiting room. Life must really, really hate them, who else would have this level of bad luck otherwise? It was like God himself was favouring the bad guys in this entire predicament; Reid being the target of the original unsub, Reid being injured, kidnapped, him and Hotch being injured and almost turned into FBI-pancakes, and now this... man he hated this!

 

He hated waiting around, doing nothing, knowing nothing, not being able to console anyone beyond giving the girls a hug or the guys a manly nod and pat on the back in a bid to show reassurance and support... man he hated the waiting game, and the stress it brought with it.

Hotch was dozing slightly, the events of the day finally catching up with the poor guys battered and bruised body, and Morgan was having a hard time distinguishing the injuries he and Hotch had to the injuries they guessed Reid was supporting as the surgeons tried to save his life. How was it that he and Hotch nearly died from a collapsed ceiling from a bomb explosion and Reid is nearly dead from a car? Where the heck is the logic in that!

Ha, logic! Man, he missed Reid's voice already; the nerdy little speech pattern that seemed to have a hard-time falling within the normal parameters for a fully-grown man's voice. He already missed Reid's smart-ass comments and blasé roll-outs of some obscure and random fact that wasn't even present in most encyclopaedias. God he wanted the kid to be alright... where would they be now if they hadn't had Reid on the team huh?

Without Reid they might never have had been able to solve half their cases... sure, they didn't say to him 'well done kid, you cracked the case' because they all chipped in as a team, but more-often than not it had been Reid and one of his absurd facts that had given them their own eureka moments. Damn it! The kid needed to live, for all their sakes!

"Morgan?" Gideon tapped Morgan on the shoulder lightly as the still injured young man continued to slip further and further into his negative and angered thoughts, "the doctors say Reid'll be out of surgery within the hour."

Not trusting himself to speak Morgan merely nodded in silent thanks and reached out to the seat next to him where he'd put his cup of untouched coffee over half-an-hour ago. He picked it up and took a sip, not caring that it was essentially cold and oily, as he watched JJ and Prentiss on the other side of the waiting room. Prentiss was still trying to stop JJ from blaming herself for what had happened but the blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman wouldn't hear anything of it; to her she felt like she had signed Reid's death-certificate simply by buying the coffee's and no-one could convince her otherwise. Well, no-one other than the subject of her guilt, but he was unfortunately still in surgery battling for his life.

Hotch opened an eye and noticed Morgan watching JJ and, as much as his tired and aching body protested, he hauled himself out of his seat and over to Morgan. He stood in front of him and looked down at him sternly, "Morgan you need to get some sleep. Go to the hotel and rest."

Hotch ignored Gideon's pointed look at him and focused instead on Morgan who finally spoke, "Na, I'd rather stay here if that's alright with you Hotch? You look like you could use the rest more than me anyway."

Hotch was about to speak again when Gideon and Rossi, who had been sitting three seats down from Morgan, both said together, "How about both of you go and get some sleep?"

Rossi paused and let Gideon continue to talk as Hotch and Morgan looked at each of them in turn, "David and I will inform you when Reid's awake but until then you need to get some rest or you'll both end up being patients in here, again," Gideon said softly yet firmly as he looked from one to the other.

Hotch and Morgan, as much as neither of them wanted to leave, nodded reluctantly when they noticed the sharp glint in Gideon's eyes and Rossi's eyes also which signalled that they'd be fighting a losing battle if they tried to argue against them.

"Alright then, JJ, Penny, Emily, come on. You need some sleep too," Rossi stood up slowly and moved over to the girls who looked at him; Garcia looked at him sleepily since she'd been starting to doze off in her chair whilst JJ and Prentiss looked at him in surprise; they'd forgotten that anyone else was in the waiting room.

"I can't leave Spence, I mean I did this to him! I can't just leave him!" JJ wailed as Prentiss stood up and firmly dragged her to her feet. Rossi gently took her hand and led her towards Hotch and Morgan.

"It wasn't your fault JJ, it was an accident..." Rossi said softly as JJ shook her head and fresh tears rolled down her cheeks, "It'll be better in the morning, you'll see. Now, go get some sleep and I'm sure Reid will be asking to see you the moment he's awake."

JJ shook her head weakly but didn't have the strength to protest anymore as her tears robbed her of her thoughts. Hotch wrapped an arm around her shoulders and gently led her out of the waiting room, followed by everyone other than Gideon and Rossi who decided to wait until morning came and Reid was safe again.

* * *

" _Spencer! Oh Spencerrrr!"_

' _Run, don't stop running... if you stop they'll catch you and stuff you in that locker again!'_

" _HEY SPENCER! COME ON BABY! WHY YOU RUNNING?"_

' _Don't stop... please don't stop... you can't afford to stop... you need to get out of school now... quick!'_

" _Hello Spencer, time to visit the locker again!"_

' _Oh no... just hold on... no, don't struggle! They'll just hit you more! It'll only be for a while... remember those Houdini books? Guess they're coming in handy now huh?'_

" _Maybe we should give him a swirly first?"_

' _No! Not water boarding! That's illegal... and torture!'_

" _Yeah! His hair looks like it could do with a good wash!"_

' _Oh God... help me...'_

* * *

"He's crashing!"

"Get the crash cart!"

"Charge to 180!"

"..."

"No good! Charge to 220!"

"Come on damn it! Breathe!"

"We've got a heartbeat!"

"He's breathing again!"

"Alright, let's drain this blood from around his heart and then repair the damage! Quick, he might not last otherwise!"

* * *

Even though they had been told that Reid would be out within the next hour, it was almost four hours after the rest of the team had left that Gideon and Rossi saw the doctors and surgeons come through the doors to the OR followed by the still form of one Spencer Reid.

They had immediately attacked the doctors with a barrage of questions over Reid's condition and after ten minutes of solid talk from the doctors they were reassured that though the damage had been severe, it had mostly been focused on the side of his chest and his left leg; as well as slight swelling in his brain which had caused both Gideon and Rossi to panic, since they knew how much Reid depended on his own brain. Apparently, if Reid had been facing the car when it impacted they would have been arranging a funeral and notifying family.

After that little bombshell had been dropped upon them Gideon and Rossi had both needed to sit down to stop them from passing out; it had been close. Real close. His heart had stopped three times during surgery and each time it was harder to restart. After they had their moment to process everything they'd been told the pair immediately asked if they could see their recuperating genius and were firmly told 'No!' by one of the most strict and terrifying nurses they'd ever come across in their entire lives.

Said nurse had also told them in no uncertain terms that they needed to have at least four hours sleep before she would allow them anywhere near a patient who was in her ICU and under her care; which basically translated into 'I don't know if you two will be able to tell the difference between the tv remote and the ventilator switch so you aren't coming within twenty-feet of him until you can keep your eyes open for more than ten seconds!'

As a result of the firm telling off, the two of them reluctantly rang Prentiss and asked for her to pick them up and take them back to the hotel, quickly explaining on the phone that Reid was fine and no-one was allowed to see him due to the penguin-nurse barring entry.

And that was how they ended up in the hotel listening to Prentiss explain how difficult it had been for her and Garcia to get JJ to calm down and finally sleep; and even when they'd got her to doze off she'd kept waking up abruptly calling out for Reid so Prentiss had had next to no sleep. Which explained her driving if Gideon thought about it but he too was exhausted and so chose to slink off to the nearest unoccupied bed and catch some shut-eye.

Rossi quickly followed his example after he assured Emily that JJ would be fine after she woke up again and Rossi gave her one of his sleeping tablets; with the strict instruction to not take anymore since they were more like elephant tranquilisers than sleeping tablets. That had gained a small smile from JJ before she'd downed the tablet and slipped off into a deep sleep less than five minutes later.

There was a common agreement among everyone in the team that when noon came around they would be up, ready and out the hotel to see Reid regardless of any penguin-nurse.

* * *

_Well... this is fun... I'm in the middle of nowhere... nothing... absolutely void of anything... so what does that mean exactly?_

_Does it mean I'm dead? No, it can't, I'd expect an ethereal white light to be shining somewhere off in the distance that I'd feel drawn too... right?_

_Okay, so if I'm not dead then where am I? Unconscious? No, when you're unconscious I doubt you have enough coherent thoughts to have such a discussion with yourself, correct?_

_Why am I asking myself rhetorical questions? I'm the only person who can answer them... unless there's someone else in here? No! That's crazy-talk! I think I need to go out to a bar or something with Morgan and scare girls away instead of reading another psychology book..._

_Alright, focus Reid! You're not dead... you're probably not in some form of limbo... so what else can it be? Come on think! You're meant to be a genius and you can't even come up with a possible theory! Is your brain in a coma or something right now!_

_Oh... coma... should've thought of that one earlier..._

_Wait... does that mean I won't be able to talk to anyone who talks to me?_

_Oh God! Help..._

* * *

Noon came and went and the entire team was back at the hospital looking various degrees of tired, ill and in-pain but all resolutely refusing to listen to the penguin-nurse and demanding to see their friend and team-mate. They were causing such a stir that one of the attending doctors said to the nurse to just let them through before they ended up doing damage to something, or someone if Morgan's murderous look at the nurse was anything to go by.

The entire team filed into the relatively large room that Reid was inside and ringed themselves around their geek, like a royal guard charged with his protection. The attending doctor came in and quickly explained that they'd put Reid into a medically induced coma so that the slight swelling in his brain could go down and his injuries heal faster.

After the doctor left Morgan muttered, "Come on Reid... we need you to be up and about soon kid, bad guys to catch and all that."

JJ slowly moved over to stand next to Reid's head and gently ran a hand along his cheek as she whispered brokenly, "I'm so sorry Spence... I should've made sure there were no cars... this is all my fault..."

The others for the most part stayed silent as they observed two of the most emotional members of the team exhibit feelings of guilt; JJ's guilt was apparent but Morgan's guilt related to his feelings of responsibility for Reid and his well-being which probably stemmed from the fact that the two of them acted like siblings.

Gideon closed his eyes in quiet anguish as he thought to himself, 'now we've got to wait for Reid to come back to us... please don't give up Spencer, we all need you son.'

* * *

It was a strange thing for a person who had an eidetic memory to forget something, mostly because they never truly forgot anything; it just felt that way in regards to certain things throughout their lifetime. In the case of one Spencer Reid, if he could choose, he would probably have chosen to forget half of the things he'd seen since the day memories formed and were first retained in his unique brain. Essentially, if he had a choice in anything to do with who and what he was then he'd probably have chosen to be smart but less unusual as opposed to being the odd one out, even in intellectual circles, simply because of his uncanny ability to remember everything.

But that was the problem if he was honest with himself; he didn't know who he'd be now if he wasn't the way he had been born. Though his memory was a curse to him, it was also and gift and one of the most powerful weapons he and the team had when tracking a serial killer; true his mind might not be as much use as a in a violent situation but in pretty much every other situation it was probably more useful than a firearm. He recalled the time when he'd went onto that train and tried to talk that man down who really was a genius in terms of mathematically speaking; he saw string theory as exactly what it was, random connecting lines that drew the most unlikeliest of things together and molded them into something unique and more important than a billion straight, logic outcomes could ever devise.

As it was, the life of the one and only Spencer Reid was less straight and organised lines and more like the ever-present string and chaos theories melded into one almighty mess. Yes, that was probably one of the best ways to describe his life; afterall the purely random and unrelated had been pulled together and had resulted in chaos, absolute chaos.

The first thing in regards to chaos that would always spring to the forefront of his mind would be his mother and her paranoid schizophrenia which had been so unexpected to him and so chaotic that it would forever have lasting effects on him. The most powerful effect it probably had had on him would have to be the fear that he too would fall victim to genetics and would be turned from the person he was now into something he and his friends, his team, would barely even be able to recognise. Fear. He hated it.

The high school that he'd attended for a grand total of about two or three years was also another thing that Reid would give anything to forget; all the pain, humiliation and fear he'd felt every day had caused in him an intense dislike of anything even remotely pertaining to the educational establishment apart from university and also left him with such a difficulty with trying to talk to other people because of the social break-down he'd suffered at the hands of children. Children are a whole load crueller than adults could probably ever be; he had once believed that but then he'd joined the BAU.

A fresh, untainted, spindly little book-nerd was what he'd been back then. No idea what it was really like to be at a crime scene where a body had been mutilated beyond recognition, no clue as to how real and overpowering the smell of rotting flesh would to him. No idea and no clue...

When he'd joined the FBI, after leaving university and deciding to follow a career in the only thing he could think of that would allow him to be of benefit to a large majority of people, he had found that he'd been taken under the protective wing of the legendary Jason Gideon.

Gideon... member of the BAU, the only unit in the whole of the FBI which every other unit had respect for. Who wouldn't he reasoned? They were the ones that got in the heads of killers on a daily basis and didn't hesitate to challenge a madman with a gun to his head and a lighter in his hand standing in a pool of petrol. They were the elite and better than good at what they do.

He'd been given the guided tour of the true purpose of the Behavioural Analysis Unit and it had felt like he'd been thrown in the deep end without even knowing how to swim; quite the head-rush. Either way, he'd been brought onto the team by Gideon to learn since Gideon saw inside of him the capacity to comprehend and assume the mind-set of many of their unsubs; just like he'd seen it in every other member of them that he'd chosen. Morgan, Hotch, Elle and JJ all had the same ability as him, even if they didn't have the book-nerdiness like him. But where Reid was good with the theoretical and such, Morgan was good with tracking the unsubs movements with a slightly disturbing ability to think in the same way as the unsub. Hotch was the one who discerned the motive and would be able to explain how and why a person would choose a particular victim or commit a particular crime, because he could think like that. Elle and JJ were the ones who had the skills necessary to see people who were potential victims and could be the next target, as well as being able to convey things to victims, suspects and even members of the local police departments. Prentiss had taken over Elle's role when Elle had left and she was good at it, better even since she was able to do the same as Hotch; though she wasn't as experienced at it like Hotch was. Gideon was the unusual one then out of the whole, original team. Gideon had the skills and abilities of every single one of them, except maybe the social skills required for talking to press. He was like a mentor to all of them, even Hotch who was the leader of the team. That was probably why it had such an adverse affect on the team when he left without even so much as a goodbye. It was like their mentor had left and gone to a distant land where they could not follow, but he'd forgotten to finish teaching them what they needed to know.

Reid supposed that was why Rossi was pretty good for the team too. Rossi was a veteran of the BAU the same as Gideon and was also able to do what everyone on the team did, if you excluded one of two little aspects of each of their own abilities; like speed or a bright-spark of inspiration. Reid felt sorry for Rossi to some degree since the guy had had some pretty big and demanding shoes to fill; which he filled pretty damn well if he was honest.

Rossi wasn't Gideon but he was like him. He was a mentor, a protector and a father-figure to them all. He was the guidance, the advice, the reason when they were all too emotional. And if they hadn't had Rossi join the team Reid didn't know what would have happened to them in the long-run.

* * *

The guilt that she felt was what some would consider illogical but she didn't care about logic right now. She didn't care about what was right and what was wrong. She didn't care that she shouldn't be sitting there, in the chair next to his bed, whispering to him over and over how sorry she was, how guilty she felt. She didn't want to hear anyone telling her that it wasn't her fault, that she couldn't have done anything to change it. She wanted someone to blame her, to justify her self-loathing but no-one would. And she hated them for it.

Here was the boy, no... man, who had taken her to see the redskins all those years ago. Here was the man who had managed to make her smile and laugh without even knowing why he made her smile and laugh when her heart was sad and her mind murky. Here was the man who she had felt intense guilt about when he'd been taken by Hankel years ago; she remembered how he hadn't blamed her then. She remembered how he'd never blamed her for anything. And she feared that he might hate her, that he might blame her for this... she didn't want him to hate her, but she didn't want him to forgive her either.

She wanted him to be angry, to be upset, and to be unforgiving. She wanted him to tell her to try and make it up to him, she wanted him to not say that it was alright and it wasn't her fault. She wanted someone to blame her, but she didn't want anyone to hate her.

"Spence... oh God Spence... I'm so sorry..." she sobbed for the hundredth time since she'd first entered the hospital room where he was being kept whilst in his medically-induced coma, "if I hadn't had gone to get those stupid coffees!" she shook her head mutely as she reached out and clutched his limp and lifeless hand with desperate hands.

She sniffled and blinked away the tears in her eyes long enough to see his face as clearly as she could with the ventilator blocking his face from her sight.

He was unresponsive to everything but according to the doctors the fact that his eyes showed he was in some sort of R.E.M sleep meant that they might not need to keep him in the coma as long as they'd originally thought. That said though, they also pointed out that he could be reliving past moments in his life that held a certain significance to him, which might not all be good as the mind doesn't differentiate between the good and bad times when it's the subconscious in control.

Contrary to what they'd intended with those comments it had done little to elevate JJ's fears as she watched the repetitive motion of his eyes underneath the eyelids as they went back and forth from left to right and back again. Over and over... like a pendulum on a grandfather clock, counting the seconds signalling the passing of time.


	11. Chapter 11

The fact that sometimes chances are completely missed it a problematic thing; meaning that you can be given the chance to change something, to fix it only to miss the chance and have everything turn out like your worst nightmare. It's ironic and sadistic and typical of the life of Derek Morgan.

He slowly edged his way into the quiet room not long after JJ had come rushing out, sobbing in guilt, and he had to swallow at the sudden lump in his throat as he took in the image of Reid attached to a ventilator and various other machines that were either monitoring his condition or keeping him alive,  _'Oh my God...'_

"Hey kid, looks like you're finally catching up on your beauty sleep huh?" he joked lamely as he closed the door and cautiously moved over to sit in the chair next to the bed with the prone figure of one Spencer Reid, Doctor.

He shook his head as he looked into the slack face of the kid he'd taken to and thought of as a younger brother,  _'I'm sorry man... I'm so sorry...'_  why didn't he stop any of this? He couldn't protect one younger brother when he was younger and now he couldn't even protect another one even with his FBI credentials and his weapon,  _'I should've stopped the bastard sooner... maybe none of this wouldn't have happened then...'_

"I'm sorry Reid, I've failed you just like I failed Matt," Morgan whispered as he cradled his head in his shaking hands, "I wasn't there for him when he needed me either."

Inside his mind Reid was listening to what Morgan was saying and trying to shout out, to scream at him, to reassure him that it wasn't his fault but he couldn't. All he could do was listen; and he hated it. He hated the fact that he was trapped in his head whilst his friends, his team, tore themselves apart with guilt over what had happened to him during this case,  _'It's not your fault Morgan... it was never your fault... and who's Matt?'_

"You know I'm proud of you kid? I've always been proud of you... you're a brilliant agent," Morgan suddenly said as he looked up into Reid's still slack face, "I haven't told you that enough times have I?"  _'No I haven't... I didn't want him to see me too clearly... I'm such a coward! He's got more guts than I have!'_  he thought bitterly as he shook his head and continued to speak, "Well, I'm telling you now and you'd best wake up soon so I can tell you again and again kid. I always heard how good I was, how proud of me people were and I should tell you the same, because I am proud of you; you've dealt with some major crap in your life kid and I should have given you more support when you needed it."

' _No Morgan... you gave me more than enough support!'_  Reid argued back but he knew he couldn't tell Morgan anything in his current state; he just hoped that when he came out of the coma that he'd still remember all of this so he could correct a few misconceptions of people's,  _'I never realised just how important to them I was...'_

"I guess I should tell you who Matt is right?" Morgan said as he leaned back in the chair and rubbed his forehead with his hand, "I think you have a right to know of the only other person who I choose to have as a brother..."

Morgan closed his eyes as he tried to order this thoughts and try to make them as cohesive as he possibly could; though he didn't have an eidetic memory like Reid he still considered his memory to be pretty good, if someone gave him a few minutes to recall an obscure memory and stuff.  _'Okay... Matt, time for the world to know about you kid...'_

"You know my life hasn't exactly been rosy right? Well neither had Matt's. I was in university, second year; before my knee got blown out in that god-damn game... anyway, I was this hot-shot show-off who was the biggest womaniser on campus," Morgan grinned as he imagined Reid's response to that; it would probably consist of some remark about how he couldn't remember all their names or something like that, "I was heading back to my dorm after staying late after training, I'd wanted to get in a few more hours to improve my tackle-technique, when I saw these guys wailing on this kid. I knew I shouldn't have gotten involved, especially since I was on the football team, didn't have back-up and had a game the day after, but I couldn't just walk away from this!"

Morgan's hands shook as he ran a hand over his bald head and took a long deep breath, "I knocked crap out of the guys and helped this puny little wimp who looked like he'd spent his entire life getting shoved into lockers and having swirly's; he looked a bit like you actually," Morgan looked at Reid's face and smirked humorously, "I helped him to his dorm and told him my name, he told me his and that was the start of a beautiful brotherhood. At least, it was until he started to get beaten whenever I wasn't at the university by the same guys I'd knocked crap out of the first time."

Morgan tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair and said, almost to himself, "It was my fault... I didn't see the signs..."  _'God I was such an idiot... I promised myself I'd never let that happen again but it nearly did with you Reid... after Hankel... I didn't see the signs then either...'_

Taking a deep breath Morgan continued with his story, ignoring the lump in his throat that had formed because he was talking about something deeply painful to him, "It happened when I was playing out of state against another university; they thrashed us but we left our mark on a couple of their players," he smiled at that, he remembered how Colden had literally left a mark on the opposing team's captain's arm with his teeth, "I got back to the university at around ten since I'd decided to go and say hi to my mom and my sisters before heading back. If I'd gone straight back to the university with the team then I might have been able to save him..." Morgan wiped away a single tear that had fallen free of its place in his eye lash and cleared his throat noisily, "When I got to the university I skipped my regular check-in with Matt; I always checked on him to make sure he was still in one piece, and hit the sack, not waking up until near midday. I went to check on him and that was when I saw the police cars and the ambulance."

' _Oh no...'_  Reid had a funny idea as to where this story was leading and he desperately wanted to tell Morgan to stop, that he didn't need to hear the rest, that he never blamed him for anything; but he couldn't do any of that now. All he could do was lie there and listen to his best friend's heart-breaking confession.

Morgan looked down at his clenched hands as he spoke, "Matt OD'd on Meth sometime around midnight; right around the time I got back to the university. If I'd gone and checked on him then I might have been able to save him... I mean, I didn't even know he was on drugs; where did he get them? Why was he using them?" 'Why didn't I see the signs?' "I promised myself on the day of his funeral that I would never allow myself to have another younger brother, that I'd never have someone rely on me in that way because I was terrified that I'd fail them in some way... but then you joined the team and suddenly my promise was broken!"

' _Damn right it was broken!'_  Reid shouted in his mind as he thought back to all the times he'd needed a friend, a brother, to help him through things and Morgan had instantly stepped up; he could never repay him for everything that he'd done but apparently just saying that to him wouldn't dispel these guilty feelings his friend harboured deep down,  _'but I'll fix that when I'm awake and on the mend, I can promise you that!'_

Morgan was quiet for a long moment as he tried to control his emotions that were now running rampant before he spoke again. This time though, his voice was less tormented, less raw with emotion, "We're like a family aren't we? The team I mean. We had Gideon in the father-like role, Hotch in the uncle and Rossi too. JJ, Prentiss as sisters Elle was the distant cousin, and Garcia is the eccentric one! It's funny really because I don't think my own flesh and blood has meant as much to me as the team does.

"We've dealt with so many different things over the years; Elle getting shot, me getting arrested, Hankel, Frank, Gideon leaving, Rossi joining and plenty of other things that have tested us and wore us down but haven't destroyed us. We're stronger now that we were before because we know we can rely on each other for everything, and that's what makes us one of the best teams; trust."

Morgan smiled slightly and was about to start to speak again when Rossi poked his head into the room and said softly, "Morgan?"

"Yeah Rossi," Morgan replied as he slowly stood up and turned to look at Rossi as he stepped into the room, closing the door after him.

"When did you last sleep?" Rossi asked bluntly as Morgan glanced away; he'd been caught-out and know he was being called on his skipping of sleep, "Go get some sleep, you can finish your shift tomorrow after you've had some rest."

"Rossi-" Morgan started to protest but Rossi cut off before he could even properly form an argument.

"Do I have to tell Hotch and Gideon because I will if I have to?" Rossi looked pointedly at Morgan who sighed in defeat and moved towards the door as Rossi stepped aside for him to leave the room.

"I'll be back by twelve tomorrow, no arguments," Morgan said firmly and Rossi nodded in acknowledgement; six hours of sleep for Morgan was better than a brief nap in a hospital chair.

Unnoticed by the pair of them, Reid had been listening to the conversation and trying desperately to tell them to both get some sleep; he was trying so hard to tell them that his right hand twitched minutely for a second before it became still again as Rossi moved over to the bed and sat down in the recently vacated seat, just as Morgan closed the door behind him leaving Rossi and Reid alone.

* * *

 

Rossi stared silently at Reid trying to ignore the tugging feeling in his heart as he observed the youngest member of them, like the youngest sibling, in such a heart-breaking state. He didn't really know what to say to Reid, it wasn't like he knew the kid as well as the others what with him being the newest member to the team,  _'maybe that could work to my advantage?'_  Rossi thought. Since he didn't know Reid all that well then that would essentially mean that Reid would probably be able to handle his presence better than the others if he woke up; of course, Rossi was working on the basis that Reid would probably either be too delirious to even recognise him or would want someone to talk to who wouldn't automatically judge him,  _'no that doesn't sound right...'_ he countered his thought,  _'the others would never judge him for this... it wasn't his fault... it wasn't anyone's fault,'_  so why did he think he'd be the best one for Reid to see when he woke up?

"That's blind arrogance David," he muttered to himself softly as he shook his head and thought,  _'what the hell, we'll cross that bridge if, when, we get there... right now I can help him by talking about something... anything... maybe something to show I trust him?'_

"Hey Spencer," he said softly, calling him by his first name which he rarely did as he never wanted to get too close to the team; but just because he hadn't wanted to get close to any of them didn't mean that he hadn't. He considered them to be his family, and he was sure they considered him family to them, oh sure none of them were related with blood but the bond was definitely there and in his opinion he believed that the bond between them were stronger than most found between flesh-and-blood family members, "It's my turn to try and talk you into consciousness and I thought I might extend some trust to you and explain why I'm a bit reluctant to develop any long-term bonds with anyone; more specifically you really."

Inside his mind, where Reid could do nought but listen to Rossi, Reid wondered what Rossi actually meant and started to review every detail he knew of David Rossi; but he couldn't find much of a reason for why he would be more reluctant to form a family bond with him as opposed to the others.

Rossi took a long deep breath as he tried to steady his sudden bout of nerves that ran rampant through him and made his throat close-up in some sort of instinctual response to the stimulus of guilt and regret that was surging through his mind as he dredged up one of the most painful events in his entire life. He closed his eyes and tried to not have a panic-attack at the flashes of memories that were assaulting him; he needed to show trust in this kid, he needed to let go of the past and its crippling fears, and so he slowly opened his eyes and forced himself to begin to speak, "You know that I was part of the original team that started the BAU right?" he didn't expect an answer but he paused nonetheless as he imagined Reid's hyper-response, "Anyway, there were only four of us; me, Quinn, Carter and our team leader, Daniel O'Neill. We worked well, in our own little ways I suppose, we separately collected information and mulled over it before we would have a group discussion; it didn't always go smoothly but we did the best we could. We always were profiling each other so trust was pretty difficult to find in each other, but we were a family of sorts; granted a really dysfunctional one," Rossi smirked in remembrance of how much they had irritated each other, "but a family nonetheless."

Reid listened attentively as he thought about what Rossi was telling him, he knew that Rossi's team had had to deal with some pretty grizzly cases and he wondered how they'd felt knowing they were doing something that no-one else had ever done before in the line of police work. They were the first profilers, the first ones to dive headlong into the mind of a killer and they probably ended up with more than just their own set of personal demons.

Rossi closed his eyes again as he fought against the fresh wave of sorrow, guilt and regret that surfaced once again trying to stop him from talking about something that he considered one of his greatest personal demons. He opened his eyes and leant forward in the chair until he was hunched over and his forearms were resting on his thighs; his hands were clasped tightly to stop them from shaking as he continued, "About a year after we had formed the team there was a pretty horrid spate of murders, all including people of a certain... calibre... the victims all had IQs over 150 and were from the same sort of focus; computing and scientific research."

' _Oh God... is this case one of the reasons why he's hesitant around me? Because I remind him of these victims?'_ Reid thought in shock as he suddenly realised that Rossi was telling him about this for more than to just try and show trust; he was telling him this so he could see that his importance to others was paramount. Reid wasn't entirely sure how exactly he had come to that conclusion but the moment he thought it he felt that it was right; that it was so very right, and it scared him.

"Anyway, Carter was smart; he was scarily smart and he knew it," Rossi shook his head as he remembered how Carter used to terrify any of the new agents who thought they had what it took to get in the heads of the most messed up humans on the planet; he'd always found it entertaining to watch his friend tear them apart and replace their arrogance with a healthy respect and fear for him, "we had this case and we were running out of ideas; at best our profile was right on a few things, and I mean a few. We guessed he was smart but had been denied the opportunity to work on something that he felt his intelligence merited for him; we also guessed that he didn't have any close family, or at least not good relations with them. And we were also right that he wouldn't like a person speaking to him like he was an insubordinate.

"But this guy had been good, he'd known to hide the evidence, hide and even get rid of the body if he could, make sure he always had an alibi and never, never acted the way we guessed he would when we were around," Rossi sighed loudly as he thought back to those fateful days and to the ill-planed idea that had caused so much pain, "We were at the end of our tether and I suggested that we put someone undercover in the company that we found all of the victims had worked for at one point or another."

' _And Carter was the one who went undercover...'_  Reid reasoned as he continued to listen to Rossi's recount, he wondered why Rossi felt so bad about this but he figured that something had gone wrong with the operation and that was why Rossi was reluctant to build-up any sort of personal relationship with him especially.

"Carter agreed to the plan immediately, he saw that it was our only way to catch the guy any time soon," Rossi forced himself to speak, his voice was becoming hoarse with raw emotion but he wouldn't stop now, maybe it was time that he told someone about this and maybe that someone had to be Reid. And so he continued to speak, regardless of how painful it was for him, "but there was one flaw in my plan; to get Carter in and make-sure he was of the right appeal to the unsub we had to confide the plan in the head of the company. We'd originally checked him out but we'd found that he had a decent alibi and didn't really fit our profile as well as some of the others did, so we took a leap of faith. And fell to our demise."

' _The company head was the unsub...'_  Reid thought in faint shock,  _'Oh God Rossi... you couldn't have known...'_  he suddenly had a really good idea as to where this story was leading and how it was going to end, and as much as he didn't want to hear it since it would give him a unique sort of insight into the mind of David Rossi he also realised that Rossi needed to tell him this; even though he wasn't physically awake and everyone thought he was unconscious still, Rossi needed him to know this so he could forgive him for his reticent behaviour towards him,  _'he thinks he needs to make amends for his behaviour, but he doesn't have to... as far as I'm concerned there's nothing to make amends for...'_

"We set everything up and Carter had gone undercover," Rossi said in a matter-of-fact kind of way, "he managed to filter our suspects pile down to half-a-dozen by the end of the month and we took our revised list to the company manager to see if he could help narrow it down further. If only we'd known it was him," he said bitterly as he ran a hand through his greying hair and thought about the discussion he'd had with the company manager, about the narrowing-down of the suspects list, over two-decades ago;

> _"Mr Tanner," Rossi called out as he rushed over to the company manager of carrying a small pile of files, "If you spare me a moment, I need your help in narrowing down our suspect list."_
> 
> _Samuel Tanner had been a relatively decent asset to them during this entire case; he'd willingly given them his personnel files, let him interview his staff and had even helped them when they'd originally narrowed down the suspects list. The only problem with all of the assistance had been the fact that they'd been overwhelmed with possible suspects; since almost every single person working that had both motive and opportunity for at least one murder alone._
> 
> " _Of course Special Agent, I was just coming to talk to your unit chief actually," Tanner nodded as Rossi stopped in front of him and looked at him expectantly, "I was going to see if he'd let me put Special Agent Carter on a contract with the company; he's got an amazing mind."_
> 
> _Rossi chuckled as he shook his head, "I don't think Carter or O'Neill would go for it Mr Tanner; Carter's too important to the team and he loves his work," he looked down at the files in his hands and missed the slightly angered glare that Tanner sent him, "we've managed to narrow down the suspect list to these six but I was wondering if you could give us your input and help us narrow it down further?"_
> 
> _Tanner looked at him for a moment and Rossi had the distinct feeling that Tanner was struggling with himself on how to answer Rossi, but Tanner answered with a nod and said, "Of course Special Agent. I want to help catch this guy; he's going after my staff afterall."_

'I should have seen it then, he showed all the signs of a guy with homicidal tendencies,' Rossi thought angrily as he swallowed and cleared his throat before continuing, "Tanner, the company manager, was able to narrow it down to two possible guys; both of them held grudges against more than three of the five victims; had ample opportunity for at least two of the murders; and, when we questioned them initially, were hostile to me and DuPrentia when we undermined their intelligence. It was decided that Carter would provoke each of them separately over the space of a week and see which one of them reacted with the most violent and homicidal urges; after that we'd arrest them and look for any evidence that showed that they were to blame for the murders of the victims," Rossi smiled in bitter anger and disappointment,  _'God we were so arrogant... we relied on the opinion of the unsub himself and didn't even realise it!'_

"The first suspect was the one that cracked when Carter publically insulted his work and his intelligence, it was quite something to behold watching Carter gleefully tear the arrogant son-of-a-bitch apart piece by piece," Rossi grinned in amusement at the memory; man he'd enjoyed that moment and he was pretty sure Carter had too:

> " _I never would have guessed that this company would have such an incompetent fool working on some of the most advanced stuff this side of the century!" Carter shouted across the room, angling his comment directly at Michael Kings, the first suspect that he was meant to be pushing into a confrontation, "I mean come on Kings! You haven't even been able to finish the equations needed to actually test the device and you're already toying around with it; and I thought a gold-fish had less intelligence that you but it's obviously the other way around!"_
> 
> _Kings slowly turned around to look at Carter and it was clear for everyone to see that the middle-aged, five-foot-four, pudgy man was spearing Carter with one of the most deadly glares to mankind._
> 
> " _Don't push him too much Den, we don't want to scoop you up with a dust-pan," Rossi murmured through the microphone that he had attached to his head-set. He was sitting inside the federal surveillance van waiting for the suspect to move. Though he knew that Carter couldn't respond to his comment he could imagine what he was thinking and it was something along the lines of_ but-the-stupid-arrogant-know-it-all-git-needs-to-be-put-in-his-place.
> 
> _He knew that Carter had a low-tolerance for anyone who acted smarter than everyone else but were actually stupider than a plank of wood was thick; he'd never asked his friend why that was but he guessed it had something to do with the way he'd been treated by his peers when he'd been younger. He knew it wasn't easy to be the odd one out and the enemy of the very people who are meant to ensure your safety._
> 
> _Carter was still insulting every aspect of Michael Kings that he could possibly think of when the middle-aged man finally snapped. With an almost inhuman snarl of absolute anger and hatred the man had launched himself at Carter, bowling him over and had begun to savagely hit him over-and-over again until Rossi and the others had sprang into the room and dragged him off of the now dishevelled looking Carter._
> 
> " _Carter?" Rossi crouched down next to his friend who looked at him dazedly for a moment before grinning boyishly._
> 
> " _Now that was something I didn't expect!" Carter laughed as Rossi shook his head in exasperation and helped him stand up._
> 
> " _Only you would find getting attacked by the very person you're insulting exciting Carter," Rossi sighed as Carter grinned at him and Rossi couldn't help but be caught up in the infectious sense of thrill Carter was feeling._
> 
> " _I didn't expect him to attack without a single word first, it was most unusual and I enjoyed the unpredictability he exhibited!" Carter explained as Rossi guided him over to the nearest EMT who was waiting to check him over._
> 
> " _You enjoyed it then?" Rossi asked in amusement as the EMT forced Carter to sit down in the chair next to him and began to check the basics like his pupil-contraction and his heart-beat._
> 
> " _Oh yeah!" Carter replied enthusiastically and Rossi had to laugh at his friend's strange interest in something that others wouldn't have enjoyed experiencing._

"We arrested Kings, the suspect, and had him in lock-down whilst we searched his apartment and storage unit. We found several items that had been taken from each victim as well as the murder weapons and also found out that Kings had hacked the computer servers of , where he worked, and had altered the records so that they showed him working when he wasn't," Rossi said as he brought his mind back to the present and tried to focus on the facts instead of the feelings, "we charged him, and he was handed over to the custody of the state police; we thought that was the end of it."

Reid waited for Rossi to start to speak again but he realised that his colleague... his  _friend_ , was probably getting lost in another memory and so Reid waited in silence for Rossi to come back to the present and carry on; although he didn't want to really know what happened since he had a sinking feeling that he could guess but he wasn't going to ignore what his friend was saying if it would help Rossi try to come to terms with what happened. It was the least he could do afterall and in his current condition it wasn't like he could tell him that he didn't want to hear anymore or walk away.

When Rossi's attention finally returned to the present he realised that he'd been back in his memories for the last twenty or so minutes,  _'sorry Reid... I shouldn't have phased out like that...'_  he cleared his throat and tried to finish his story, "We returned to the place we called an office; it was more of a decorated shoe-box really, and went our separate ways for the weekend. Carter mentioned how he was going to visit family out-west and that no-one should disturb him unless we had a majorly important case; maybe if we'd tried to call him when we got the case on Sunday we might have found him..." Rossi hung his head in guilt and shame, he remembered that moment with amazing clarity; it had been the moment that Rossi had inadvertently signed Carter's death-warrant:

> " _We've got another case," O'Neill said sadly as he walked into the room and saw only two of his team, "Where's Carter?"_
> 
> " _He's away visiting family," Rossi answered quickly before adding, "I don't think we'll need him on this case sir, and I personally think he needs a rest after the last case; I think it hit him hard."_
> 
> _O'Neill stared at the most experience agent on his team after himself and Carter for a long moment before nodding in agreement and saying, "You're right David but if this turns nasty we might need to call him regardless."_
> 
> " _Yes sir," Rossi understood the hidden meaning in the words, his boss was saying that he was doing this as a favour to both he and Carter but he wouldn't leave Carter out of it if it became one of their more... politically-motivated cases. Afterall, even they had to bow under the pressure placed upon them by politics; if they didn't work on certain cases when they came to them they wouldn't have much of a job for long since they weren't exactly liked for doing what they do by many of the people in power. But that was one of the costs they were willing to sacrifice; anyway, for the most-part they were allowed to choose their own cases and as long as the local police agreed they were free to take as long as they liked on a case._

"The case wasn't that important and we managed to close it within three days; we were pretty thrilled that we would be able to work on another case, of our own choosing, but we needed to get Carter back first; he had this thing about arguing for whatever case we didn't choose and arguing against whatever case we did choose. It was his thing and a tradition so we didn't want to break it," Rossi croaked as his emotions finally got the better of him. He closed his mouth and stifled a quiet sob as he shoulders shook from the combination of grief, pain, sadness, guilt and regret that roared through him. He leaned over to the bedside cabinet and, with shaking hands, poured himself a glass of water.

Drinking it slowly he managed to get himself under control enough so that he could continue on with what he needed Reid to hear, even if he wasn't awake and telling him it wasn't his fault,  _'It was my fault... my plan... my insistence that we shouldn't call him... my fault he's gone...'_  When he finished the water he placed the glass back on the cabinet and took a deep, shuddering breath before continuing, "I tried calling Carter to tell him that we were going to choose another case but he never picked up, he couldn't pick up actually. I figured that he wasn't at his house and I didn't know the names of his family out-west so all I could really do was wait for him to call me back.

"Three days later, we were all getting worried that he hadn't called in once, and when the phone rang we held our breaths wondering if it was Carter. I remember that O'Neill answered the phone and spent a few minutes listening before he said  _'you're positive?'_ and whatever the response was on the other side it seemed to cause something in him to break. He'd ended the call with a depressed-sounding  _'thanks'_  before turning to us and saying that... saying that C-Carter was dead...

"We had to formally identify his body and were informed by the local PD that they'd found him along with another body in the rubbish dump on the out-skirts of town, I asked to see the other body and I was shocked to see it was Samuel Tanner," Rossi whispered as he felt a tear come loose from his eye and roll down his cheek, he didn't bother to wipe it away as he continued to speak to a silent Reid, "I asked to look at his apartment and found evidence that he had been the one who had killed those victims from the case we'd worked on with Carter undercover. I couldn't really believe it... our profile had essentially vindicated Tanner from our suspect list when it turned out that he was the unsub the whole time... I really couldn't believe it...

"It took me most of the day to piece it all together, I didn't want to stop working on it because I didn't want to think about Carter... and I realised that Tanner had taken C-Carter the day we got our knew case and I didn't want us to call him... if only I'd called... if only..." Rossi hung his head in broken-defeat and let some of the tears fall from their precarious positions on the ends of his eye-lashes; he didn't care that he was crying, he didn't care if Reid woke up at that very moment and saw him crying. He just didn't care about anything at the very moment in time.

' _Oh Rossi... you're not to blame... you couldn't have known...'_  on the inside Reid was crying to as he heard the sounds of Rossi's obvious heart-wrenching distress and felt a sudden rush of anger towards himself over the fact that he couldn't offer any words of comfort to his friend when he so obviously needed to hear them.

Reid himself remembered back when he'd first had his mother institutionalised how much guilt he'd felt over it, he knew it wasn't the same thing as what Rossi had described to him, but he understood how much it hurt to not know whether you could have changed something and saved someone you care about... and it wasn't easy to live with yourself after the fact either.

Reid himself had been pretty lucky if he was honest, no-one he really cared about had ever died directly because of his action or inaction, but it wasn't like he couldn't deny the fact that some people had been hurt and killed because of him; the memory of Tobias Hankel when in the persona of Raphael telling him to choose between two people who he didn't know purely because he wanted to make Reid suffer with the knowledge that he was going to kill someone that he'd chosen, came to mind as he felt the guilt that he always harboured for what had happened then,  _'I'll be damned if I don't help someone else get over something like this!'_  Reid thought fiercely, he owed it to Rossi to help him with the guilt he felt and maybe, just maybe, Reid would be able to help himself too.

When Rossi's tears finally began to waver and die away he looked up slowly and stared at Reid as he thought about Carter and how alike to Reid he was, "You know, when I first met Carter, he was a lot like you Spencer; he was nervous and wary of others like you are, but over the years that we worked together he opened up and became an entirely different person to the one I met on my first day in the BAU.

"You'd have probably liked Carter Spencer, he had this way about him where regardless of how smart you thought you were he could shoot you down a pile of flames with a single word or look, you do that too sometimes you know? You've done it with unsubs, Morgan, me and Hotch even.

"I suppose I'd best let whoever's on the next shift come in but I might tell them to come see you in an hour or two; if you're really conscious but unable to communicate with us then I guess you're probably tired and need to rest," Rossi said softly as he stood up and placed a reassuring hand on Spencer's arm, "You need to get better soon Spencer; the team needs you."

And with that David Rossi left Reid to his thoughts as he exited the room and said to Emily, who was waiting patiently outside, "Emily; I think we should give Reid some time to rest properly before we start beating him up with more stories about our pasts?"

Emily looked at Rossi and took in the man's tired and emotionally raw appearance, 'what the hell has he been talking about in there? Well, whatever it is it's obviously painful for him to talk about... and maybe he's right... maybe Reid could do with a breather from us constantly telling him to wake up...' she smiled slightly and nodded as the pair of them moved down the corridor and to the lift at the end; they'd go back to the hotel they were all staying in and maybe open a bottle of wine with the whole team, 'most of the team... Reid's not going to be drinking wine for quite a while...' she corrected herself as the lift doors closed.

Back in his private room Spencer Reid felt thankful that Rossi had given him the chance to rest, though he knew his team wanted to be with him in his time of need he also knew that he needed to rest; being conscious but unable to talk to anyone because you're in a coma isn't exactly the most relaxing thing a person can do and so it had tired him out because of the stress and the fact that he'd been desperately trying to talk to his teammates, his friends all day, 'maybe a few hours rest before I listen to anymore stories might be a good thing...' he thought as he let himself let go of his consciousness and drift away into a gentle and serene slumber.

* * *

A dreamworld is ever so relative and depends so much upon the mind of whose the dreamworld actually is. To walk upon live snakes, all wriggling and hissing, whilst listening to a cacophony of sound, screams and shouts and laughs and giggles from little mischievous girls, and all the while seeing with upside-down eyes the views best left for nightmares, splicing horses and boiling dogs and flailing moths reaching for sunshine that isn't there, is a unique experience that could relate to oh-so-many varied things in the mellow and liquid mind of man.

If you have the strange gift of seeing the truth in the chaotic symbolism that is the only method of communication between the conscious and the subconscious then perhaps you would come to the most unusually logical and common sense-based conclusion that you lost whatever faculties you retained in your mind a considerable time ago since how would anyone be considered even remotely sane if they dreamt of such absurd and frankly disturbing things in anything other than a nightmare?

It is probably only a superstitious mind that believes there is some truth in what you dream, if you recall what is was that occurred in your dream-state, but why is it then that the perfectly rational and logic-based mind can also come to believe in some sort of hidden truth that floats around the very fringe of subconscious thought? Perhaps it is just a strange and unexplainable thing? Perhaps it is not for mellow minds, regardless of how disciplined and intelligent they may be? Or perhaps it is just the way every mind works because it works upon the basis of a genetic imprint which dictates such matters as the belief of a form of truthfulness hidden in the subconscious state of dreaming?

Spencer Reid's dreamworld was more like a decidedly eventful and partially chaotic trip down memory-lane. This then was obviously a powerful feat of logic and imagination, and of the mind itself, that had resulted in the re-evaluation of the existence of one Spencer Reid, who was still in his inert position in the hospital bed, still attached to various machines which continued to allow his body to heal as his mind considered the things he'd been told by his friends, his colleagues, his family.

Whispers of echoes from times gone by rushed into his ears as his mind replayed the memories from his past over-and-over, like a remarkably undamaged record set on repeat. Clear as day is different from night, memories assaulted the mind of him and echoed many things to him that he'd known since young;  _the world isn't a nice place... there are monsters everywhere, in everyone... even the innocent and pure will not remain that way forever... you won't remain that way forever..._

Youth is not always a deciding aspect in one's level of maturity, it is rather the manner in which a person can adapt to experience and change upon necessity. This would be true for Spencer Reid since his young age did not obscure his responsibility to his mother when she suffered her psychotic episodes, infact his youth was more than likely a helpful factor as far as adaption goes; he was young enough to change and adapt far better than he would have done had been older due to the simple fact that he still had the innocence that few retain in this modern world. It was this then that helped him as he had none of the usual arrogance, or self-assured belief in the ways of the world to be able to see he had to go with the flow and change accordingly. Quite the mature thing if one is honest.

Although from all of this a new question is posed, waiting to be answered; what is maturity? The psychological meaning of the word is; when a person responds to the circumstances or environment in an appropriate manner.

Now that is all well and good but how does one come to the conclusion of the best and most appropriate manner to react and behave? That is answered by the general consensus of society; an appropriate response to something is defined by the opinion of whatever society is the dominant type of society, for example the response that would be considered appropriate in England when someone is insulted by another ranges from; smashing their head in, ringing the police and complaining, getting some of the lads around to deal with the problem, holding a mediation where the problem is discussed and a resolution to it is found, and to the blatant disregard of it. Out of all of these responses the one that is generally accepted by society on the whole is; calling the police, but this could be a waste of police time that could be better spent patrolling dangerous areas or chasing criminals; or mediation, which gives the responsibility to the people themselves to find a way to resolve the problem which allows for self-growth and development.

But once again, maturity. The most mature response is the one society deems it to be, maturity is not age-defined so why are children never considered as being mature? Why do people think teenagers are not mature and responsible enough until they're eighty?

Why do some people disregard Spencer Reid when he informs them of his age? The simple answer is perception. People's perceptions affect their opinions; a middle-aged man who has had to work hard all his life will not respect another man who is younger and hasn't done half the work he has regardless of his position based solely on his perspective. It is an interesting thing to consider and quite the puzzling question, since it leads to so many others arising which all equal demand a definable answer which makes sense and doesn't bat around the sides.

But this not what Spencer Reid was considering. No, in his mind of minds he was dreaming of the things in his past that had turned him into the man he was now, every single thing that had changed him. Everything.

* * *

" _Everyone, this is Spencer Reid; he's new and I want you to treat him kindly," that voice is gentle, kind and polite but it has the air of a person who doesn't really give a damn what happens outside the classroom as long as nothing happens inside it where they can be held responsible. It is a less-than reassuring air for a young boy to pick up when he's not even half the height of the slightest student in the room; it tells him that friends will be hard to come by and allies even harder._

" _Take your seat Spencer and I hope you're alright with the syllabus; it's pretty advanced," polite and patronising arrogance, he doesn't even want a know-it-all little kid in his class but if it improves the score average of this lot then he might get a raise so that's what matters most to him._

_Silent voice and quiet shuffle, try to ignore the stares, the smirks of jocks who act like hyenas with a new victim they can laugh and joke at before going in for the kill. Don't look at them, eye-contact is hard to do when you're short but when you're younger than everyone it's impossible and essentially suicide. There's no logic to needlessly becoming a target so fast is there? But then again, the moment you walk through the doors they smell the stink of fear coming off of you in waves signifying that you're a prime source of jest and pain._

_Sit in the only empty seat; pull a pad of paper out your bad and a pen from your pocket. Place your bag on the floor, slide it between your dangling feet; offering a sort of security that you know isn't going to be tangible enough and will only be an ideal belief. Look up at the board, try not to show your fear; they can already sense it they don't need to see it too._

" _Now class, here's the most difficult thing you'll come across in your mid-terms..." he's talking to them all, happy that he's out of the way and attention returns to him; he's in control of them, he won't lose it to a child with a brain and no brawn._

_But the child's already done what he's talking about, but if he makes any note of himself then he's beyond dead and he wants a life after the horrors that he can just sense in his immediate future; the next few years are going to be worse than hell for him..._

* * *

 

" _Oh God! He's such a dork!"_

_Girly laughter that grates on the nerves of the victims as they lie in the gutter and stare through blurry and bruised eyes at the blondes and brunettes with their high school jocks holding them possessively. This is life and no-one can counter it, anyone who tries normally dies a painful death; afterall, jumping off the gym roof is probably a hundred times less painful than another couple of years of this sort of thing. Not that he'd ever consider doing that for real, who would take care of him mom? Who would care if she didn't eat? Who would care if she didn't wash? Hold on, who would care if he died anyway? Maybe his mom, if she was coherent and thinking straight rather than believing that poison is in her water and little green-men in her dinner. But he doubted that she'd care for long, of course it'd be through no fault of her own, she'd mourn him for a while but eventually she'd come to believe he was part of her hallucinations and not real at all. But that comes with the territory when you have a paranoid schizophrenic for a mother._

" _Maybe we should give him a haircut? I mean look at that hair-style, how lame can you get?" that's a less than polite voice, rough and grating and just oozing unrepentant violence and anger; he's hurt about something and what's a better way to cope with it than to bully the heck out of a kid who can't fight back against six muscled jocks?_

" _Dude, you got your knife with ya?" a sneezy voice this time around, he's not so tough, he's sure that even he could take him, but sneezy's got friends in high places; and he means that in more than just the sense of height. He hates this guy more than he does any of the others, the others are all a bunch of hurting, brainless pratts but sneezy's the brains of them. Sneezy is the manipulator of the group and he controls everything; you say something against him and you're worse than dead because sneezy turns the jocks against you and then the whole of the school follows; nerds, dorks and geeks included. Sneezy is the grand-ruler but he doesn't say it outright; he'd make a good politician is a thought he's had more than once since he'd joined the school last year. Two-faced son of a-_

" _Yep. Hold him guys," the rough and messed-up nut-job answers back with a gleeful sense of homicidal delight. He's going to so enjoy doing this to the pip-squeak, nevermind that said pip-squeak has done jack-all to him, it'll make him feel better about his pathetic existence and that's all that matters to him really._

" _Nrrggh..." is all he can say in response since his jaw doesn't seem to really want to open fully enough for him to form the words, 'no, get away!' which in reality wouldn't do anything beyond give them something to laugh at. They call him weird and freak but they're the ones who are enjoying doing this to another human-being, so who again is weird and a freak, hmm?_

_The flicking off a pen-knife is incredibly loud to him, even though the sounds of laughter and of him being hauled out of the gutter are louder than it in reality. It instils in him a morbid sort of fascination at it, perhaps something sharp would be of more use than just humiliating him now... perhaps it can save him... perhaps..._

" _Let the haircutting commence!" sneezy laughs maliciously and his thoughts are scattered as he hears the shearing of his hair as the strands are sliced and the locks fall to the ground where they're stood on and pointed at by the blondes and brunettes. God he hopes someone kills them one day... he really does..._

... _"Spencer..." the voice of the uncaring teacher calls out as the bell goes and they're packing up, "please wait behind."_

_Oh great, what is it that mr-self-important wants to rant at him for this time? Thinking? Or just existing maybe?_

_Stares again, ignore them as they shove past, don't look and don't glare, head down and eyes averted; it's safer, though not by much. Wait for the class to empty, for the door to close, look up and ask politely, "yes sir?" questioning grace is a bad idea, questioning mr-self-important is suicide. But this isn't a question as much as it is a curious enquiry._

" _Come up here Spencer," he says it kindly, softer than normal, with a faint hint of underlying domination; it does little to reassure a beaten boy such as him. He didn't want to walk across the room, away from the door and freedom; alright, a hiding then home where he'd have to lick his wounds and take care of his mother simultaneously, but for some unknown reason that was more appealing to him than being in the presence of mr-self-important._

" _Now Spencer, you know that I think you're a good student don't you?" mr-self-important cooed as he positioned himself on the edge of the desk, whilst he stood in front of him and looked at him in sudden worry and concern._

_The only thought he could think of was that the guy hated him because he had a brain and could use it better than he could, what was he buttering him up for? And was it a good thing? The glint in mr-self-importatnt's eyes told him otherwise and he sorely wished for his daily beating._

_Instead of running like he knew he should, instead of making an excuse to try and get away, he nodded dumbly, realising that to say no to that question would definitely not be in his best interests. And mr-self-important smiled widely at him, and his heart sunk to the bottom of the school basement and kept on sinking as mr-self-important stood and moved over to the blinds, which were partially closed and obscured anyone's view into the classroom, before walking over to the door and locking it with the key that he had in his pocket at all times._

_The thought that was raging in his head ran along the lines of 'God help me... please, oh God help me...' but God wouldn't help him and when mr-self-important turned back around the look of pure, unadulterated, lust terrified him more than the bullies who he knew were waiting for him; but the bullies would leave when it went five o'clock, he had the feeling that he wouldn't be leaving until much later._

_And he was right..._

" _Alright Spencer, let me show you how much I_ appreciate _you, my boy..."_

* * *

The nurse at the nurse's station was leaning idly back in the seat reading this week's copy of Heat magazine when the monitor in front of her flashed red and an audible alarm began to blare out signifying that someone was going into cardiac arrest. She threw her magazine aside and paged the on-call doctor as well as alerting a couple of the other nurses who were in the staff room to the emergency.

In a blurry of activity the on-call doctor rampaged down the halls as he tried to wake himself up fully from the twenty-minute nap he'd been having in the only unoccupied room in the wing, he asked what was happening and when he found out what the problem was he was off to the source of the disturbance with a handful of nurses in tow.

They burst into the room where the patient was arresting and they set to work to try and save them; disconnecting the ventilator in favour of the hand-held bag and had the defibrillators on and charging. Whilst they were busy trying to save this patient, none of them paid attention to the other patients so the one in the room next door was resolutely ignored, even as he seemed to come to life and thrash about in fear, terror and abstract horror at what he was reliving.

* * *

' _No... stop please...' he could hear the grunting, like a pig and he could smell him all around him. He could see him in his eyes, forever burnt into the retinas and he couldn't move for his arms were pinned and his body pressed down on the desk by the weight of him._

" _You know you want it..."in his ear, low and deep, filled with lust and sexual excitement. He couldn't move, he couldn't fight, he couldn't stop him._

' _No...' he didn't want it, he didn't, stop it... let him go, leave him alone, get out of him, stop it, it hurts him. He didn't want it, he never wanted it, why was he giving him it?_

" _That's a good boy... good boy..." reassuring, but not really, gratification for him but torment for the victim, he couldn't stop him and because he couldn't stop him it was good, it made him good, because he couldn't fight back and he could take whatever he wanted and couldn't be stopped. That wasn't good... that was traumatising... that was evil._

' _Please... someone stop him...' no-one would stop him, no-one cared, they hated him anyway. They'd probably jeer at him, egg the guy on, make it hurt, they'd say, give it to him, they'd laugh, make him cry, they'd jeer and he'd be even more humiliated than he felt now._

" _Shush... it'll stop hurting after a while... don't worry... I'll take_ good _care of you..." hand over his mouth, silencing his whimpers, his pain, his voice. He didn't want to be taken care of, he didn't want it to stop hurting, he didn't want it to have happened in the first place. Why is it happening to him? Why does this happen to him?_

' _Kill me... someone kill me... oh mom...mom...' his mom wouldn't know, his mom wouldn't care... she wouldn't even realised who he was and what importance he was to her if he died. His mom wouldn't care, because she'd never know, no-one would... no-one could ever know._

" _That's it... stroke it... hold it... good..." he's over him, not in him now, but still over him. His back is against the desk and he's doing what he's told, he can't not do so, it's too dangerous; he wants to just go home. Why him?_

' _Mom... mom, please... dad...dad why'd you leave me...'if his father had been there then none of this would ever have had happened, would it? No, his father wouldn't have sent him to a public high school, he'd have sent him to a school for the gifted; just like he'd promised he'd do. He would have been safe, and this wouldn't have happened._

" _I'll be expecting you to stay behind tomorrow Spencer, we need to go over some of your_ work _... it could do with some improvement," over and done with for today, mr-self-important smirks and strokes his hair with a gentle and appreciative smile on his face that makes him shudder as he bends painfully to pick up his bag and scarper from the room._

' _Just kill me... please, someone kill me... it hurts so much...' it's nine o'clock in the evening and he's missed everything, the bullies are gone, the whole school is dark and silent and all he can wonder is; why didn't anyone check into the classroom earlier? Where was the cleaner? Where were the other teachers? Why were we alone? Why wasn't there anyone I could run to for help, for protection?_

* * *

His eyes snapped open, his whole world came to life, his mouth opened to scream and he couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe, someone was smothering him, someone was trying to kill him!  _'NO! HELP ME!'_  he couldn't breathe... he couldn't...

Sounds were going off in the background, so loud but so distant to him, he heard them but they didn't register, he didn't register, all he could think about was that someone was trying to kill him. He needed to breathe, he had to fight, fight back, fast, before he couldn't anymore...

He flailed his weak limbs, heavy and painful from his slumber and his injuries, and he thought he heard a voice, someone talking to him, holding him down, killing him!  _'No! I won't die! No!'_

And his world started to darken, his heart beat started to slow, his limbs ceased in their flailing, his lungs gasping for oxygen that he couldn't reach, he was about to die... and something was pulled out of his throat causing him to cough loudly and gulp in lungfuls of the sweet, rich oxygen all around him.

"That's right, take deep breaths, you're going to be fine now, you're going to be just fine," a soft, soothing voice in his ear as hands gently laid him down and straightened out his blankets, and he realised where he was, knew who they were, and knew they were never trying to kill him, they were trying to help him but instinct had taken over and dictated his reaction; they would understand that, he probably should tell them that was it but he couldn't find the energy. The last thing he heard before he drifted off to an exhausted sleep, free of dreams and memories, was the gently soothing words in his ear saying, "sleep now Mr Reid, you're going to be just fine."

And the world went dark and he fell into the glorious embrace of dreamless slumber.


	12. Chapter 12

History in some places around the world is just that; history. In others however it is alive and is like a conscious entity that dictates to the masses; such as Northern Ireland. It is probably one of the most used examples of the past affecting the present but that is because it is so effective in conveying how the past can strengthen an idea or destroy a resolve.

History for mankind has long since been re-written by the winners whilst the losers are left to rot and die from malnutrition or sepsis. History is considered to be an important thing for mankind; it shows that we have remembered what has happened to the previous generations but do we really understand what we remember? That is another question entirely isn't it now?

On the one hand it can be argued that people have learnt from the past; just look at the developments in castles from the 11th century up to the 17th, they went from mere forts of wood and dirt to become the monumental and landmarks that are the stone castles that spanned through the ages. But, though history is useful in this sense since it has been of assistance to developments in architectural designs, it hasn't been that good a friend to the morality and ethical dilemmas that accompany war. Just look at the current fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Vietnam, Korea and so bloody on! If history was so good at making mankind stop and think about the costs then it is doubtful that such wars would have occurred in the way they did. World War One. World War Two. When will it be World War Three that the grandchildren of the current generation will look back at and remember but not truly understand?

Some histories are ignored, others forgotten, whilst some are thrust into the limelight as their dastardly details are obscured in that murky grey-film that is wrapped around any type of history that relates to war; so that fools and murders can plead the case that 'it was war!'

War. Government sanctioned murder is probably a much more apt term if one is honest; innocent civilians are slain in war but are considered 'acceptable losses'. Acceptable? How is the loss of life, any life, acceptable? It's a contradiction to what people are brought up to believe; whatever their nation or creed or religion may be!

Of course, the concept of war is a problematic one because who is it that you blame at the end of the day? Who is the one who really has the blood of the innocent on their hands? Is it the soldiers who fired the weapons? Is it the engineers who made the weapons? Is it the companies that designed the weapons and mass-produced them? Is it the politicians who sit at their desks and look through files and decide upon a whim that 'we-need-to-go-to-war-to-find-these-none-existent-weapons-of-mass-destruction-since-that's-a-good-excuse-to-hide-the-fact-that-we're-really-vying-for-the-oil-supply-in-this-country-we-don't-care-about-democracy-or-honesty?

It is only a personal opinion but it is ultimately logical to come to the conclusion that the politician is the one to blame. Sure the weapons company mass-produced the weapons and the engineer built the weapons and the soldiers actually fired them at insurgents in defense, but it's the politicians who made the decision and so they are ultimately to blame. However, trying to get a politician to accept blame is harder than trying to get blood from a stone. Politicians have the natural predisposition to be two-faced, lying and self-centred arseholes that care about number one; ask a politician how willing he would be to give half his salary to a charity and watch his response. It's funnier than a comedian on television and that's the truth; something politicians don't know too much about, the truth that is.

Essentially the main aim of this is for a person to question themselves, to question their position in society and to wonder; am I right to sit in the front room in the evening and hearing the news that another British or American soldier is dead and not care about it because I don't know them and they died in a war sanctioned by my government?

What is the purpose of it all? What is the reason for fighting amongst yourselves? Is it boredom? Is it sport? Or is it some sort of genetically predestined urge that goes back to the times when Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge against the Logos of God? Is it that man is naturally flawed and takes pleasure in the inevitability of death?

History. Such a funny thing; it has the power to create and to destroy. It is memories, skewed by the limited perspective of man. It is truth, clouded and beaten into submission by greed and self-importance. It is pain, covered over with a thin veneer of jubilation and victory. It is everything, but is considered as nothing unless adhering to the perceptions of flawed man.

And if he was honest with himself, Spencer Reid had never cared much for history since it had so many lessons and stories to tell but they were hidden and coded; and he had tired of figuring them out and trying to explain them to ignorant fools who saw nothing but their own narrow little existence in such a big, old world.

History; what's the point of it if no man will look at the past and understand what it screams out at them, calling out on all frequencies only to be turned off and dismissed as static and the words it echoes as wishful thinking? What's the point of the future when it's going to end up just the same as the past? A cycle. Constant. Reoccurring. One that no-one is bothering to try and change.

* * *

Spencer Reid sat in the very same hospital bed that he'd been in for the last two weeks; after they had moved him from the ICU when he came out of his medically-induced coma that is, feeling incredibly bored. When he'd been told by the doctor's that they'd put him under he hadn't exactly been all that happy with them; he was pretty sure that it said on his medical forms that he wasn't to have any narcotics, not even aspirin. But when the doctor had explained that they'd had no other choice since it was either give him drugs and put him in a medically-induced coma or fight constantly against all the odds to try and keep his body partially functioning; they had decided that the coma was the best thing for him since they knew that for the first few days after the surgery his body would need as much rest as possible so as to heal all his injuries. And he'd apparently had a fair number of injuries; and that wasn't including the broken ankle and stuff that had occurred  _before_  the hit and run.

He sighed and looked around the room that they'd placed him in; he had secretly been thankful when he'd been moved to a private room where he wouldn't have to listen to other patients and stuff... if he was honest with himself, he actually doubted as to whether or not he would have been able to be on one of the main wards in the state was in. He didn't mean physically; according to the doctors he was doing just fine and would be able to be discharged in the next few days as long as he didn't strain anything. No, he meant psychologically speaking; being a Behavioural Analyst was useful in some ways since it gave him the distinct advantage of knowing how he was feeling to a level that more people probably didn't reach when they thought about their actions in certain situation.

He was wary of being around any of the male staff, or the patients, unless someone from his team was around; even if they weren't in the room just knowing that they were nearby was enough to stop his fear. Though he knew that it was completely irrational he couldn't stop himself from reacting to a clap on the shoulder by one of the doctors, or a gentle smile from one of the nurses; and it was starting to aggravate him more than he was letting on.

Reid didn't know if anyone on the team noticed his behaviour but he figured that if he'd already realised how he was acting then it was only logical for him to assume that they had done so also; yeah, they had this no-profiling each other rule but it was hard  _not_  to profile each other when it was what they lived, breathed and slept. The longer he considered the fact that his team  _had_  to have realised he was acting differently, the more he wondered why none of them had come right out with it and questioned him about it all. It was something that had kept him awake all last night; it wasn't the nightmares. No, not all, they weren't the reason he was avoiding sleep; and he wasn't even avoiding it, he just found that he couldn't sleep.

Yeah, and the President was an alien from another planet where they did the Vulcan hand-signal and muttered  _'live long and prosper'_ twenty-four-seven!

The truth of the matter was Reid was avoiding closing his eyes, just as he had been doing for the last seventy-two hours, because of the simple fact that he was terrified of the fact that he was reliving nightmares from his past; events that he'd purposely blocked out when he'd left high school. He was terrified of being back in  _that_  room with  _him_...

Reid was interrupted from his internal thoughts by the loud rapping at the door which made him jump in shock and hidden fear. Looking up at the door he relaxed when Morgan poked his head through the door and graced with him with a grin that clearly showed how happy Morgan was to have his friend back in the land of the conscious.

"Hey boy genius!" Morgan grinned as he entered the room and moved over to sit in the vacant chair that was next to Reid's bed, "how you been man?"

"Uh, good. I've been good, you know, besides the whole being a coma thing," Reid smirked half-heartedly and Morgan chuckled humorously, "how's the team been?"

Morgan took in the appearance of his surrogate brother and couldn't help but think,  _'man... he looks like crap! When was the last time he got any shut-eye man?'_ but he didn't voice what he thought, deciding to go with the flow of the conversation and not hit on any of the heavy stuff that he'd have to talk about sooner or later with Reid; and Morgan much preferred later... much, much later in fact.

"We've been suffering from random-information withdrawal without you man, and Garcia's been driving everyone crazy because she hasn't been able to visit you as much as she wants to; Strauss is being her typical self on that matter," Morgan raised an eyebrow at Reid who nodded at the hidden insult to the BAU section chief before continuing, "there was a small case that Emily and Rossi dealt with in Vancover; the unsub was working as a journalist and 'stood out for a mile' I think Emily said," Morgan held up a hand to stall Reid from talking as he had more to say, "Hotch and I are fine; excluding a couple of tender ribs so I don't think I'll be tackling any suspects for a while yet," that earned him a quiet laugh from Reid as he smirked, "Gideon is still here and he wants to talk to you but he's worried that you won't let him Reid."

Morgan saw there and then that Reid had started to shut himself off and that Morgan was being effectively shut-out by one Spencer Reid and he'd be damned if he'd let that happen after everything they'd gone through during that goddamn case! "Reid! All you have to do is listen to him; you don't have to talk or anything, but please man. For me and the others, just listen to what he's got to say."

"I've already listened to everything that Gideon had to say Morgan, I'm not going to sit there and listen to the a broken record being played," Reid said icily and Morgan felt as though he'd actually been smacked across the face; the only time he'd ever heard Reid using that tone of voice was when he was having a go at one of the sheriff's when they were after a unsub who had essentially been penalised by the entire town, and he'd never thought that the kid would use it on him...

Deciding that trying to force Reid into listening to Gideon would be more futile than trying to get a bull to stop attacking the colour red, Morgan switched tracks; choosing to focus on what the entire team had noticed whenever they'd visited Reid, "Alright fine, then could you at least explain to me why everytime a doctor walks into your room, a male doctor or nurse, you seem to freak out?"

Reid stared at Morgan for a long, long moment as he thought to himself that it was about time that one of them asked him,  _'and how ironic is it that it's Morgan who asks me, hmm?'_  He didn't really want to talk about it since it was history to him; even if said history had reared its incredibly ugly head and was causing him problems in his present life.

"Reid?" Morgan said looking intently at Reid whose gaze moved away from Morgan and off to the wall opposite his bed; he found a particularly boring section of wall to peer into as though it could reveal everything for him, and Morgan was beginning to worry when Reid spoke; his voice low and sad, filled with long-since forgotten pain that had risen to the surface and was threatening to choke him.

"When I was eleven I was raped by my calculus teacher."

* * *

Morgan stared at Reid, his mind had ground to a halt and his couldn't speak. He felt like he couldn't breathe. He felt like he'd just stepped into an alternate reality that specialised in nightmares come true,  _'no... not Reid...'_

"He asked me to wait behind one day; about two months after I'd joined the school, and I'd thought that he wanted to argue with me about my homework or something," Reid whispered in a matter-of-fact tone of voice which stirred Morgan's mind and broke the hold that shock had upon it, "but I was wrong... I was so,  _so_  wrong..."

Morgan wanted to talk, he wanted to argue and tell Reid that it was a nightmare, that it wasn't true but he could see; he could see that it was. He'd noticed the signs since that first day Reid had joined the teams; the awkward social behaviour, the avoidance of any form of confrontation, the nervous and skittish behaviour around anyone who was physically stronger or more imposing than him. Man! How could he have been so blind? The goddamn kid had told him about the time the bullies tied him to the goalposts starkers; why the hell didn't he see the truth in any of it?

"I had this feeling when he asked me to wait behind but I ignored it, I ignored a  _primal instinct_... that's how Neanderthal man got eaten by the sabre tooth and other predators. I thought I was so smart and there I was ignoring a base instinct to get away from  _any_  form of danger; actual or perceived," Reid's voice became more bitter, angered and Morgan could also detect a hint of self-loathing, but he knew better than to interrupt the kid; he needed to get this off his chest and who else was better to tell it to than him? Derek Morgan; kindred soul, kindred victim.

' _..Spencer... please wait behind...'_

"If only I'd listened to that instinct; it might never have happened to me," Reid wiped a tear that had rolled down his cheek and was hanging precariously on his jaw as he spoke, "H-he locked the door a-and... he told me t-to... he m-made me... a-and I c-c-couldn't s-st-stop him! I-I c-couldn't..."

When Reid finally broke down and began to sob in earnest as he relived the events of that fateful day in his mind, Morgan didn't hesitate to embrace his surrogate brother in a hug so as to give him the real, physical reassurance that someone cared about him; he knew from experience that Reid needed someone to tell him that they cared about him, especially after he'd just told one of his deepest, darkest, and probably most embarrassing, secrets to them.

Morgan held him and let Reid sob into his shoulder as he murmured unintelligible words to try and calm his emotional friend and... and brother-in-arms; he didn't stop murmuring those unintelligible words even when Reid started to beat his fists on his shoulder in anger and humiliation; and he definitely didn't stop murmuring those unintelligible words when the kid finally sobbed himself to exhaustion and slipped off to sleep. Instead he gently laid him down on his bed, still murmuring quiet, unintelligible words as he tucked his surrogate brother in and he sat there, still murmuring, until the nurse came to do the daily check.

* * *

" _Spencer..." the voice of the uncaring teacher calls out as the bell goes and they're packing up, "please wait behind."_

_Oh great, what is it that mr-self-important wants to rant at him for this time? Thinking? Or just existing maybe?_

_Stares again, ignore them as they shove past, don't look and don't glare, head down and eyes averted; it's safer, though not by much. Wait for the class to empty, for the door to close, look up and ask politely, "yes sir?" questioning grace is a bad idea, questioning mr-self-important is suicide. But this isn't a question as much as it is a curious enquiry._

" _Come up here Spencer," he says it kindly, softer than normal, with a faint hint of underlying domination; it does little to reassure a beaten boy such as him. He didn't want to walk across the room, away from the door and freedom; alright, a hiding then home where he'd have to lick his wounds and take care of his mother simultaneously, but for some unknown reason that was more appealing to him than being in the presence of mr-self-important._

" _Now Spencer, you know that I think you're a good student don't you?" mr-self-important cooed as he positioned himself on the edge of the desk, whilst he stood in front of him and looked at him in sudden worry and concern._

_The only thought he could think of was that the guy hated him because he had a brain and could use it better than he could, what was he buttering him up for? And was it a good thing? The glint in mr-self-importatnt's eyes told him otherwise and he sorely wished for his daily beating._

_Instead of running like he knew he should, instead of making an excuse to try and get away, he nodded dumbly, realising that to say no to that question would definitely not be in his best interests. And mr-self-important smiled widely at him, and his heart sunk to the bottom of the school basement and kept on sinking as mr-self-important stood and moved over to the blinds, which were partially closed and obscured anyone's view into the classroom, before walking over to the door and locking it with the key that he had in his pocket at all times._

_The thought that was raging in his head ran along the lines of 'God help me... please, oh God help me...' but God wouldn't help him and when mr-self-important turned back around the look of pure, unadulterated, lust terrified him more than the bullies who he knew were waiting for him; but the bullies would leave when it went five o'clock, he had the feeling that he wouldn't be leaving until much later._

_And he was wrong..._

" _REID! RUN MAN!" A voice shouts, loud and demanding; it makes him stop and turn to see who it is who calls his name. A there, like a righteous creature, just and true is the only person who knew what it was he was so terrified of._

_Without a thought, without a second to hesitate, he runs through the suddenly open door. He runs and doesn't look back even though he's sure he can hearing the roaring of a monster and the clashing of swords, he runs as fast as he can, past the bullies waiting for him, past the other students laughing at him, past the other teachers ignoring him. He just runs. And he doesn't stop until he gets home where he see the righteous creature who had saved him._

" _Don't worry kid... he won't be bothering you anymore..." the creature says gently as he crouches down to his height and smiles a warm smile; filled with sincere care and protectiveness that he hadn't seen in a long time, "that's a promise... but you should forgive another child... now wake up."_

* * *

And he did wake up. Eyes open, orbs of confused brown looking around him as he took in the room he was in; it was darker now and there was someone sleeping in the chair next to his bed looking as though they had been there for a while. Guarding him... protecting him...

Reid leaned forward slightly in the bed, ignoring the slight twinge in his side, and turned to look at the sleeping figure in the chair so he could see who it was. He blinked once, twice, and a third time for good measure as he stared at the one and only Derek Morgan. He realised belatedly why he was so surprised to see Morgan; it was because he'd seen him in his dream (nightmare?) and he'd been the one who had stopped mr-self-important...

He smiled slightly as he took in the sight of his best friend, and surrogate big brother, who looked adorably innocent; oh where was a camera when you needed one? He stifled a laugh as he turned back around and lay back down on the bed trying to get comfortable so he too could go to the land of nod and have a happy dream without mr-self-important making an unwanted guest-appearance.

As he dozed off he smiled at the thought of what the others would make of Morgan if they saw him before he woke up; it was with that last thought that Reid slipped away from the conscious world and went to frolic and play in the land of dreams.

* * *

Rossi and Hotch led the way along the corridor, past doctors and nurses and patients alike, weaving their way through all obstacles as they continued on their way to the room of Doctor Spencer Reid. Emily and JJ were directly behind Rossi and Hotch, vying to get past them so they could see their youngest team member and friend, with Garcia and Gideon bringing up the rear.

Hotch reached the door first and slowly opened it, stopping at the sight he saw. The others, all impatient to get inside tried to peer round Hotch to see what had stopped him so effectively; and they too stopped when they saw what he had. There was Reid, lying in his bed, asleep and looking more vulnerable and innocent that he had done when his life had literally been hanging by a thread; and then, in the chair next to the bed, there was Morgan looking like he should be hugging a teddy-bear and sucking his thumb. It made the girls all reflexively sigh, their maternal instincts rearing up and showing themselves, whilst the guys all tried not to smirk at the sight; although Hotch had the sudden urge to find a camera and take a snapshot so that they could remember that they all had some innocence still inside them, even if it wasn't often seen.

After a long moment where no-one moved or said anything Morgan moved and opened a bleary eye at them, thus breaking the illusionary image of innocence and spurring them into movement. Hotch moved into the room, allowing everyone to pile in after him, and moved over to rest a hand on Morgan's shoulder; he looked at Morgan meaningfully and Morgan nodded in response. The others noticed the action but didn't mention it since they all had a pretty good idea what it was about; JJ and Emily moved over to fuss Reid who was also starting to leave the land of nod and enter the land of the conscious.

Gideon stood back, nearest to the door encase Reid freaked at the sight of him and kicked him out, he wanted to go over and apologise over-and-over but he knew that it would serve no purpose; Reid had already rejected his first attempt to apologise he wasn't going to force him to try and accept another.

Reid smiled at JJ and Emily who were fussing over him and noticed that JJ looked awful; like she hadn't slept properly in a while, and he felt a pang of guilt, he should have resolved this problem with her when he'd first woke up,  _'well, no time like the present,'_  he thought as he took JJs hand and held it to stop her from moving away.

Emily must have sensed that Reid was about to do something and wisely moved away, engaging the others in a random conversation so as to give him and JJ the illusion of privacy. Reid was secretly thankful that the others wouldn't be silent and listening to what he was going to say because he was positive that JJ was going to start crying.

"JJ," Reid said softly as JJ looked at him with wide blue eyes, "It wasn't your fault you know?" Reid saw there and then that JJ was about to cry, but he didn't tell her not to, instead he decided to continue before he lost the nerve to explain everything in one go, "I was on the other side and I saw the car coming towards you and I didn't think of anything other than your safety; you're important to me JJ, like the sister I never had," she smiled slightly at that even though there were tears rolling down her cheeks, "I acted on impulse and if I'm honest I wouldn't have had it any other way, you were in danger and I acted; it's a simple fact. And no, it's not your fault, you didn't see the car; you didn't know it was there and you had done the right thing when you'd looked both ways before crossing so. It. Is. Not. Your. Fault. Alright?"

JJ nodded slowly, unable to speak for fear that she would start wailing, and she tentatively leaned over and gave Reid a hug that told him how guilty she still felt,  _'God aren't we a right lot? We all cling onto guilt like it's a lifeline...'_

When JJ finally let go of him she hurriedly said that she needed to clean herself up and make herself look respectable; Reid had had a comeback to that comment but had decided to just nod for fear of being tied up and attacked with cosmetics.

He watched her leave the room and noticed that Gideon was standing beside the door, looking well and truly ready to bolt at the first sign of hostility,  _'I should tell him to get out...'_  Reid thought as he stared at Gideon and Gideon stared right back,  _'he's not welcome here... but...'_  but the dream-Morgan had told him to forgive another; it hadn't meant JJ since he knew there was nothing to forgive in regards to her, but there was everything to forgive in regards to the man standing beside the door staring at him.

"Gideon," Reid said softly, all noise in the room dying down to become a tense silence, "I... I'm sorry," Gideon's eyebrows rose in shock at Reid's apology and he wanted to tell him that there was nothing for Reid to apologise for but Reid continued before he could say anything, "I should have accepted your apology when you first gave it to me but I was angry... so I'm sorry for not accepting then but I hope I can still accept it and ask you to forgive me for my earlier anger?"

Morgan, Hotch, Garcia and Rossi all looked at each other; curious as to when Reid and Gideon had talked and this apology had been given, but Emily smiled slightly and looked from each of them expectantly. Gideon continued to stare at Reid for a long, long time as he thought to himself,  _'he's sorry for not accepting my apology when I gave it... he's got nothing to be sorry about! He had every right to be angry and to not accept it... but this is Reid so...'_ Gideon nodded his head slowly and said, "There's nothing for you to apologise for Spencer, you had every right to be angry and the apology from me is still there for you to accept; if you want to that is."

Reid smiled and nodded in acceptance, "of course I do! I should have accepted it the first time!"

Hotch and Morgan both looked at each other and released pent-up breathes of relief; there wasn't going to be any world war three enactments today. Thank God.

* * *

  _Three months later_

"We've got another case guys," JJ declared as she passed their desks in the bullpen, heading towards the conference room, "and it's a bad one," she added as she looked over her shoulder to see them all hurrying to follow her.

"Oh great, just when I thought I'd have the weekend to relax," Emily muttered as she followed behind Morgan, "why can't the unsubs give us one weekend?" she asked, almost to herself; she wasn't expecting an answer and so turned to glare at Reid when he responded.

"Actually, on average an unsub doesn't really have- what?" he looked at Emily who glaring at him rather murderously and then at Morgan who was miming being hung behind Emily, "Oh... uh, nevermind."

Emily snarled at him before turning around and pushing past Morgan who was trying to not laugh at the look on Reid's face, "Did she just  _snarl_  at me?" Reid asked shocked and Morgan couldn't help it, he laughed.

"Oh man... you need to learn some tact; that way Prentiss might not consider murdering you," Morgan chuckled as Reid followed after him into the conference room; they both sat down in the only spare seats in the room, although Reid made sure he was as far away from Emily as was humanly possible which left Morgan to sit next to the snarling bobcat.

"What is it JJ?" Hotch asked, gaining everyone's attention and sobering Morgan up fast. JJ sighed and clicked the remote she had for the large screen on the wall and three photographs of middle-aged men appeared.

"David Kent, Adam Brine and Christian Wilds; each found on lonely highways, their wallets and valuables still on them, no obvious signs of struggle but they were each found within a mile of each other within a two week period," JJ explained as she pulled up another set of images, this time of the crime scenes, "when they were examined, the coroner discovered several injuries indicative of torture including electrical burns, strategic cuts and cigarette burns on both sides of the torso."

"Damn..." Morgan breathed softly and Reid secretly echoed his sentiment; he hadn't liked being tortured by Hankel all that time ago and his torture had been mild compared to what these guys went through.

"There were also signs of ligature marks on the throat, wrists, feet and..." JJ paused for a moment and grimaced as she looked down at the report in her hand; just to make sure that what she'd read an hour ago was actually there in writing and she hadn't imagined.

"Where else?" Hotch asked, frowning at JJ's hesitation; he'd never known her to hesitate when explain a case unless it was something... disturbing.

"Their genitals," JJ muttered as she looked up and at Hotch, "there was indication that their genitals were bound and restrained at the time of death," JJ looked away from everyone who were staring in shock and surprise; she quickly moved on as she hit the button on the remote in her hand and continued, "the local police want our assistance since they found a note in the breast pocket of the latest victim; taunting the police for not being able to capture the unsub."

A photograph of a hand-written note appeared on the screen and they each read through its contents in silence; each of them mulling over the words, the verbs, the tense and other such things that most people wouldn't even consider thinking about.

"This was written by a woman," Prentiss declared suddenly and everyone looked at her inquisitively.

"How can you tell?" Rossi asked quietly, not doubting that she was right but wanting to know how she'd come to that conclusion.

Emily looked at him and then pointed at the image, "look at the verbs and nouns used; women generally use verbs more than men, 'he, they, you, them, she, we,' this unsub is a woman!" Emily explained as they all looked at the note again and noticed what she'd seen.

"Or it could be a writer?" Morgan said as he looked through the note, mentally tagging anything that pointed to a female unsub and anything that pointed to a male unsub; there was quite a lot of things that pointed to a female unsub but there were so rare, especially female serial killers.

"No, Emily's right; the handwriting supports that," Reid countered as he leaned forward slightly, "the fluid writing and the defined capital letters are indicative of a woman having written this."

"So we've got a female unsub in North West Virginia. Let's go catch her then."

They all nodded and quickly collected their things before heading for the elevator as Hotch said, "wheels up in twenty."

They all piled into the elevator; Morgan, Rossi and Hotch at the back; JJ, Prentiss and Reid in front of them and the one and only Jason Gideon in front of them all.

* * *

**_I am part of all that I have met;_**

**_Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough_ **

**_Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades_ **

**_For ever and for ever when I move..._ **

**_Though much is taken, much abides; and though_ **

**_We are not now that strength which in the old days_ **

**_Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are,_ **

**_One equal-temper of heroic hearts,_ **

**_Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will_ **

**_To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield._ **

**Ulysses, Alfred Lord Tennyson**


End file.
